The corridors of the National Assembly, Charles de Courson knows them by heart. He has been surveying them since 1993, the year he was first elected deputy for La Marne. Not well known to the general public, the centrist parliamentarian was talked about this week, when Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne triggered 49.3 to pass the pension reform in the Assembly without a vote. “A denial of democracy”, he then reacted on France info, adding that “it is inadmissible to use 49.3 and set fire to the country”.
Opposed to the text on the pension reform and especially to the forced passage of the government, Charles de Courson, who is part of the Liot parliamentary group (Freedoms, independents, Overseas, territories), is at the origin of the motion of censure against the government, which will be voted on Monday in the National Assembly. Europe 1 paints the portrait of this deputy like no other.
Thirty years of National Assembly
If Charles de Courson joined the National Assembly some thirty years ago, and is now its oldest in terms of longevity, it is not for nothing. The elected official is the descendant of a family of parliamentarians, which has sat in the National Assembly since 1789. While one of his ancestors voted for the death of King Louis XVI in 1793, his father was a member of the Resistance, and his grandfather opposed granting full powers to Marshal Pétain.
A senior civil servant, Charles de Courson is a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales and of the ENA. In 1983, he entered the Court of Auditors, before joining the cabinet of the Minister of Industry Alain Madelin in 1986. He then joined the National Assembly in 1993, and has never left it until today. today. A specialist in public finance, the centrist deputy from Marne is even nicknamed “the soldier monk” by his colleagues at the Palais Bourbon.
Opposed to Macronie and pension reform
In 2013, he made a name for himself by becoming the president of the commission of inquiry in the context of the Cahuzac affair, then, in 2016, he was one of the few right-wing elected officials to oppose the forfeiture of nationality after the Bataclan attacks. Opposed to Macronie, Charles de Courson participated in the creation of the Liot group during the last legislative elections. If he had presented himself to become president of the finance committee last summer, the elected official finally gave up, in favor of the candidate of France Insoumise Éric Coquerel.
Usually discreet, Charles de Courson has opposed the pension reform head-on in recent weeks. Until the filing of this motion of censure, which the deputies of Nupes and the National Rally intend to vote, and which could bring down Elisabeth Borne and her government.