This is a new theme that ignites the spirits between the National Rally and La France insoumise. Mathilde Panot’s group accused this Friday, in a press release, the RN – and more particularly Sébastien Chenu, vice president of the Assembly – of “wanting to attack the rights of people with disabilities, LGBT and migrants.”
“The RN eliminated the study groups dedicated to sign language, LGBTQIphobia in the world and the conditions of reception of migrants,” says LFI. “I preferred to promote groups on the theme of the luxury industry, or hunting.”
These study groups mentioned by the rebels are cross-party structures, “irreplaceable places for debate and exchange” that allow deputies to “deepen and follow specific issues”, in particular by ensuring “legal and technical surveillance”, summarizes the National Assembly. In the last legislature, the topics ranged from the maritime economy to recreational fishing and the end of life.
A number of groups divided by two
If there were 122 study groups between 2017 and 2022, Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly, passed the instruction in September: their number must be reduced to 58. “It’s an old topic”, explains an administrator of the National Assembly. Assembly, interviewed by BFMTV.com. “These groups were very numerous and their interest was not always evident.”
Therefore, the mission was entrusted to the deputy RN Sébastien Chenu, due to his status as Vice President of the Assembly, to speak on the subject. “We asked all the group presidents to have proposals,” says the deputy from the North. “We collected 375. Then I invited all the members of the National Assembly office to come and decide with me.”
But, according to the RN, the various members of the LFI office – Clémentine Autain, Mathilde Panot, Danièle Obono and Caroline Fiat – did not attend the three preparatory meetings devoted to the issue.
“I want us to criticize, but it is too easy to do so when we have not come to debate. They are cross-party meetings in which we all try to reach an agreement,” responds Modem deputy Christophe Blanchet, also a member of this body.
The RN denounces “a trial for witchcraft”
When asked, Caroline Fiat states that she “never skipped” a single meeting of the group. “If I didn’t come to one of these meetings it’s because I wasn’t invited,” says the elected LFI. The other rebel deputies mentioned above did not respond to requests from BFMTV.com.
Be that as it may, the LFI group still sent proposals to Sébastien Chenu, whom we were able to consult. Among these, we find in particular the request for a study group on prostitution or on domestic violence. “We accept 79% of the proposals from the rebels, 85% from Renacimiento and only 65% from the RN”, affirms the vice-president of the Assembly.
“Obviously, sometimes they get together,” continues Sébastien Chenu. “They really are judging us for witchcraft, unfair and false,” judges the vice president of the Assembly.
LGBTphobias grouped in discriminations
If the list will officially stop next December, the work of the office has already stopped the creation of several groups. That of sign language, considered not very active, will be eliminated, as announced by La France insoumise. It will be merged into the creation of a new study group called “inclusion and disability”, until now divided into three groups.
The issue of the reception of immigrants will be integrated into a group on unaccompanied minors. “It doesn’t make sense,” laments Caroline Fiat. “We cannot manage a child who does not have a residence permit and an adult in the same way. Nobody would think of admitting a 35-year-old child to a pediatric hospital.”
Finally, the group discriminations and LGBT-phobias, created in 2018 at the initiative of the LFI deputy Bastien Lachaud, will remain well, says Sébastien Chenu, but under the sole title of “discrimination”.
“We will probably put LGBT-phobias in parentheses. And I will be happy to be in this group,” advances Sébastien Chenu, former founder of Gay Lib, the LGBT movement of the UMP, ancestor of the LR. He was previously not a member.
120 deputies for the hunt
As for the study groups on hunting and luxury that the RN deputy would have chosen to “favor” according to the rebel group, the situation is more nuanced. The hunting party is the most active in the National Assembly, with no less than 120 deputies that make it up.
“We will never be able to close down this group that is very powerful,” an LR deputy responds bluntly. “We must not dream, even if one day we had an environmentalist president.”
The luxury sector will be studied by two well-differentiated groups: a first dedicated specifically to this sector and a second on “commerce, crafts and crafts”, as was done during the previous legislature.
Source: BFM TV
