Legislative: these disappointed deputies who throw in the towel and will not stand again


If many candidates dream of becoming deputies, some outgoing have decided not to stand again for the next legislative elections. Disappointed at not having been able to carry out the actions they wanted to take, some deputies simply decided to give up. They are about 20% to throw in the towel. “The mandate of deputy, as I think the citizens envisage it, does not correspond at all to reality, even if there are a certain number of modalities of this mandate which are very interesting and exciting”, explains Frédérique Dumas, EELV deputy. “On the other hand, it does not date only from this mandate, but the deputy does not make the law, it is the government.”

“A decor of democracy”

Elected MP for Hauts-de-Seine five years ago under the label En Marche, she was one of the first to resign from the majority parliamentary group in September 2018: “Unlike the United States, Canada, or in England, we, when we have a debate in France, in the hemicycle, there is only the word, but not the substance”, she assures. “We have seen it several times, the President of the Republic makes decisions, announces them on the 8 p.m. newscast, and we have a debate afterwards.” According to her, the deputies therefore have “the decor of democracy, the clothes, but there is not really substance”.

What discourage the city councilor: “I spent five years in a lot of conflict and a form of helplessness. is not as efficient as one might imagine.

This feeling of powerlessness is not unfounded, according to Jean-Louis Touraine. After three terms, the LREM deputy from the Rhône also chose not to stand for re-election: “I have always considered that the function of a deputy was not a job. It is a mission that we carry out temporarily, but it’s not a job you have to do all your life.” A long-standing promise to himself to “do a maximum of three terms, which is the case now”.

“The deputy is not at the heart of the action”

With hindsight, for 15 years, Jean-Louis Touraine did not often see the National Assembly initiate many advances: “There are many bills that have been submitted by all deputies. For example, in the past five years, very little has been discussed in the hemicycle”, he told Europe 1.

“We can clearly see that there is something here that makes the deputy not at the heart of the action, but rather in addition to the action of the executive. That is a French singularity since in countries like Germany or Great Britain, the respective roles of the executive and parliament are somewhat different,” he said. “It’s a place where you can learn a lot, where you see a lot of things, where it’s very interesting, but we can’t consider that we are the first actors in the evolution of political life and our country”, concludes the one who is also a professor of medicine.



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