This is the meeting place for all parliamentarians. Because Le Bourbon enjoys close proximity to the National Assembly, some have nicknamed it “the brasserie of conspiracies”. Discreet meetings are organized there in the basement like lunches in full view of all. You can enjoy a beef carpaccio at 21.50 euros, sip a soda at 6 euros or indulge in a crêpe au sucre at 7.50 euros. At the end of May, the clientele overflows onto the terraces. Tuesday, May 23, Marine Le Pen had to wait at the counter before a table became available. The next day, the leader of the Republican (LR) deputies, Olivier Marleix, had a coffee there, as did the National Rally (RN) deputy from the North and vice-president of the National Assembly, Sébastien Chenu, who to discuss with a journalist, who to work on a file on a corner of the table with a collaborator.
Lately, in Bourbon, there has been a lot of talk about immigration. Because the government is struggling to secure a parliamentary majority to present a bill announced for months. The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, has instructed the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to organize consultations by July 14, to lead to a vote this fall. The executive is trying to rally LR on a text he considers ” balance “, but the right continues to raise the stakes.
At the center of the discussions: the emblematic measure which plans to facilitate the regularization of undocumented workers. LR made it a red line. “It’s wanting to open the doors wide”, denounced Olivier Marleix, in THE Sunday newspaper of May 21. “No text that would include new suction pumps like this massive regularization will be voted on”, warned in the same newspaper the senator from Vendée and president of the LR group at the Luxembourg Palace, Bruno Retailleau, who would rather “reinstating the crime of illegal residence”. A speech that made the far right cry plagiarism, of which the leader of the deputies, Marine Le Pen, assured, on 1er February on France Info, that in power she would be “total firmness with employers who employ clandestine workers”.
In Bourbon, a textbook case
And yet, ironically, these same politicians who are fighting against the regularization of undocumented migrants probably meet at lunchtime, at the Bourbon, Aboubakari Fofana, a 19-year-old Malian who clears the tables, brings the dishes on the terrace, do the dishes from the bar. They may order a dessert from among those prepared every day by Amadou Diallo, a 36-year-old Senegalese, the establishment’s pastry chef. “I only have strangers in the kitchen, recognizes the director of Bourbon, Gilles Viala, 44 years old. They do the jobs that the French don’t want to do. I can understand why. They are asked to work staggered hours, without the possibility of telecommuting, including weekends, and they live an hour away by transport… We have foreign workers because they have a little less choice. » Around the National Assembly and the Senate, in the 6e and 7e districts, where many ministries are also concentrated, few restaurants can claim to have never employed undocumented workers in their kitchens.
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