Macron snatches French Assembly presidency from leftists with right-wing vote

The Macronist Yaël Braun-Pivet was re-elected this Thursday as president of the French National Assembly in a secret ballot, which has been decided in her favour thanks to the votes of the deputies of the right. The candidate of the Together for the Republic party (the French president’s party) has surpassed the New Popular Front deputy, communist André Chassain, in the third round (220 votes against 207).

Following the 2022 legislative elections, Braun-Pivet resigned from her position in the government to become the presidential party candidate of the Assembly – she was Minister of Overseas Territories at the time – but against the opinion of Macron himself, who preferred other representatives of his party. However, Braun-Pivet prevailed at that time and was elected in the second round with 242 votes. During the previous legislature, her activity as president was marked by several controversies with representatives of the left-wing France Insoumise party, who criticized her management of the Chamber, particularly for the number of sanctions imposed against her (including some for displaying Palestinian flags ).

The first woman to hold this position, she had made clear, since she was re-elected as deputy on election night of July 7, her intention to run for re-election, despite her party’s loss of the parliamentary majority. “During these two years, I have fought day and night so that the National Assembly is not blocked, so that each representative is respected,” Braun-Pivet defended in the days before the vote, referring to the situation of the relative majority in which the presidential coalition found itself for two years, with 250 elected representatives, 82 more than the current one.

“The last few weeks have been extremely tense and we have seen an anxious and fragmented country. Today we have a great responsibility,” said Bron-Pivet in his first speech in front of the cameras since being re-elected. The president reminded that “important issues are at stake” in this legislature, that “our decisions and actions can change lives, as voters have told us. We have to listen to these messages and find solutions in new ways”. Bron-Pivet explained the need to find “compromise”, saying that “this assembly is more representative of the French people, but it is also more divided”.

From the first round, Braun-Pivet had the support of the Presidential Party (formerly called Renaissance, recently renamed Together for the Republic) and its allies in the centrist Modem party. The other center-right party, the former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe (Horizons), decided to present an alternative candidacy with deputy Naima Mouchou. Charles de Courson, a deputy from the Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories (LIOT) group, the longest-serving MP in the Assembly, was also a candidate.

In the past days, the presidents and representatives of the groups have multiplied the negotiations and agreements in the corridors of the Bourbon Palace, especially after the first vote, to negotiate possible support and the possible withdrawal of candidates. In recent days, representatives of the Gaullist Right (now under the name of The Republican Right) have nominated Philippe Juvin as their candidate for the presidency. Juvin was re-elected in his constituency after the withdrawal of the presidential candidate in the second round and is one of the party leaders most favorable to an agreement with the center. His withdrawal and his party’s vote for Braun-Pivot have been decisive.

The favorable vote of conservative deputies for the Macronist candidate comes at a time when French media have published that the new leader of the Gaullist party, Laurent Wauquiez, is preparing a document that would serve as a legislative agreement for a possible alliance with Emmanuel Macron and the formation of a government – ​​in minority – that brings together conservatives and centrists.

Separation from the left

After learning the results of the latest legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron announced that he would wait for the “composition of the Assembly” before making any decision on appointing a new prime minister. That statement turned the election for the presidency of the Chamber into a key indicator, especially with regard to the New Popular Front, which continues to claim the legitimacy to form a government because it is the coalition with the most seats.

For left-wing deputies, the election of a candidate for the presidency of the Assembly had provided relief from the growing tension over the appointment of a prime ministerial candidate representing all left-wing parties. The formation of the New Popular Front (Rebellious France, the Socialist Party, Europe Ecology-The Greens and the Communist Party) agreed on the appointment of André Chassaigne, the Communist deputy for Puy-de-Dôme.

Chassagne is the president of the Left, Democratic and Republican (GDR) group, which brings together, in addition to the Communists, progressive representatives of the French overseas territories. He is a well-known figure in the National Assembly, where he has served for 22 years, and it was expected that his figure and his experience would allow him to attract votes beyond his own ranks.

At the end of the session, the deputy denounced that “the French vote was stolen by an unnatural alliance”, in reference to a possible agreement between conservatives and Macronists in exchange for decisive votes. The Communist politician has said that the NFP is proud to have “fought this battle together, agreeing on the name of a single candidate.” “We have defended our program,” he added.

In fact, the NFP candidate came out on top in the first round, ahead of the far-right candidate and Braun-Pivet, who came in third. But the withdrawal of the right-wing candidates and the Horizontes representative had already indicated that Braun-Pivet would come out on top in the second round and would be placed as the favourite for a hypothetical third vote.

Far-right seeks alliance

The National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s party, presented its own candidate, Sébastien Chenu, as vice president during the previous term. According to French media, aware of not having enough votes to be elected, the far-right party hoped to negotiate the withdrawal of its candidate or the vote of its delegates.

In return, he hoped to reach an agreement with the other groups on the distribution of other key positions in the Assembly. The condition put forward by Le Pen’s party is that candidates “must support the institutions and the plurality.” A way of criticizing the attempts to establish a cordon defended by left-wing parties, which defended an agreement with the Macronist coalition that could exclude representatives of the National Group from the commissions. But ultimately – and against all odds – Chenu maintained his candidacy in the third round.

The party with the most representatives, Le Pen’s party claims two vice-presidential positions, one of the three quaestors (responsible for managing financial and administrative services) and a secretariat. The National Group also claims the presidency of the Finance Commission, which must be awarded on Saturday, July 20 and which the Assembly rules indicate must go to the opposition. The problem is that, in the current situation, without a government or a clear majority, no one can say who the opposition is.

Criticism of the government

The person who holds the presidency of the National Assembly is considered the fourth most important person in the state, in addition to setting the political pace of the lower house. It organizes parliamentary work, directs deliberations, maintains the order of the session and can also suspend it, among other privileges. You can also go to the Constitutional Council to decide whether the laws accepted are in line with the Magna Carta.

Although the election is not directly linked to the appointment of the next prime minister, the understanding between Macronist and conservative representatives adds more uncertainty about a possible agreement that complicates the left’s efforts to come to power. However, experts have stressed that this election is above all an agreement on the functioning of the chamber and is not necessarily transferable to a government agreement or a majority in favor of a political project.

With an unprecedented configuration in the National Assembly – the absence of a clear majority – the election of a new president is a particularly crucial moment in the legislature and serves as a barometer of the balance of forces between the various blocs. The rest of the key positions on the assembly board will be filled between Friday and Saturday.

This context has meant that special attention is paid to the vote, at a crucial moment, when there is great uncertainty about what the color of the next government will be and what position the current executive, headed by Gabriel Attal, holds. The fact that Attal and several members of the government participated in the vote has been criticized by the rest of the political groups, who believe that it goes against the separation of powers.

Some striking photos from this Thursday. As tradition suggests, the youngest deputy in the Assembly – in this case Flavien Termette – 22 years old, chosen by the extreme right – was the first to vote and waited near the ballot box to shake hands with the rest of the members. Several NFP MPs (all of them from France Insoumise) have refused to do so.

On the other hand, environmentalist deputy Sébastien Petavi, the first French parliamentarian to sit in a wheelchair, regretted in a tweet that he was unable to vote directly in the first two rounds and “had to hand over his vote to an usher” because the chamber is not adapted. Finally, he managed to cast his vote in the ballot box in the third vote, amid the applause of all the deputies present in the chamber. Since his election in the last legislature, Petavi has sat in the front row, next to the traditional ministers’ bench, instead of on the bench with his group mates.