“Six months later, still 60 deputies on the floor.” This is the final conclusion of a former representative of the Renaissance who cannot believe her professional difficulties, after weeks looking for a job. After the defeat in the legislative elections in June, some former members of the presidential majority remain without jobs.
If several figures of the macronie, from Amélie de Montchalin to Christophe Castaner passing through Brigitte Bourguignon, have been appointed in recent weeks to prestigious positions, their situation is far from summarizing that of the 114 macronista deputies who were defeated or who did not presented.
“We’re happy for them and a lot of times there’s a form of legitimacy when they land, but we’d like us to do the same for us, to come along,” one loser yells at BFMTV.com.
However, around a buffet, Emmanuel Macron thanked the deputies who fell at the end of the summer at length, even promising to “help” them to “return to extrapolitical life”.
As a helping hand, the former deputies of the presidential majority preferred to launch their own Telegram loop. A time titled “The dismissed not depressed”, was recently renamed “They are no longer deputies but they are still committed.”
“We really needed this kind of group,” said former Renaissance MP Catherine Osson. “You lose your compensation overnight. We don’t even have the equivalent of notice. It’s hard.”
4,271 euros gross per month of subsidy
If the former deputies to the National Assembly cannot benefit from any common law unemployment benefit -the compensation they receive is not a salary-, the defeated deputies have had a specific fund fed by parliamentarians since 2018.
The compensation rules are based on those of the salaried employees regime.
“The duration of the compensation cannot be less than 6 months, nor more than 24 months for beneficiaries under 53 years of age,” reads the National Assembly website.
Beyond that, depending on age, it can go up to 30 or 36 months. The monthly allowance is equal to 57% of the amount of the parliamentary allowance, that is, 4271 gross euros.
While civil servants often return to their previous post, such as former MP Laurence Vanceunebrock who has become police commissioner again, or his office for the liberal professions, it is quite different for those who have left their private post.
“We rowed a little morally”
First obstacle in the path of professional reinsertion: low morale. After having lived through long days, night sessions, hundreds of demands on horsemanship, those beaten have to get used to a new rhythm of life.
“For 5 years, we were the center of many things”, sums up Véronique Hammerer, formerly elected at the Palais-Bourbon.
“We had discussions at a very high level, with Matignon, ministers,” he continues. Overnight, the phone no longer rings, the agenda is always full now it is empty”. “Even though we know we are going to digest, it takes a little time, we row a little morally”, adds the one who was beaten by the RN in his constituency.
“Complicated to find a hierarchy”
Difficulty two: Potential employers sometimes have a hard time envisioning former elected officials in another role. With the added bonus of worrying that your potential recruit is struggling to fit the salaryman mold.
“When you are a deputy, you are a captain on board,” acknowledges another elected. “It is difficult to find a hierarchy. We can say that you are going to have problems to find your place in a team, to accept orders, to return to specific schedules.”
There is also the difficulty of being able to sell newly acquired skills. After having worked a lot on education issues, a former deputy would have seen herself readjusting in the field, but she has a hard time convincing her new experience.
“We tell ourselves that a deputy is just a machine for making speeches,” laments a former deputy. “And yet we know how to express ourselves in the media, who to trust in the political ecosystem. This should be very valuable to a company.”
“Too many candidates” for a position
Third hurdle on the road: having to face competitors with a similar profile. The general delegate of a professional federation This is how he assures us that he has received a dozen CVs from Renaissance deputies to become his number 2.
“There are twenty or thirty positions a year that can match their profiles. When you have a hundred people with very similar CVs looking, inevitably, there are too many candidates”, analyzes this professional.
The issue of geographic location also raises questions, as many former MPs aspire to remain in their former constituency.
“Me, I’m not ready to let go of my region that I love to work in Paris,” says a former elected official. “At some point, we lost, we have the right to finally have to redo our professional life where it started and where we want to live.”
A situation “really not good for democracy”
One of her colleagues in the chamber points to the cost of TGV tickets – “sometimes too expensive” – to come to job interviews in Paris, some of them stalled on the eve of D-Day. If the train were free for life for former deputies , François de Rugy, then president of the National Assembly during the first five-year term of Emmanuel Macron, put an end to this advantage.
Several former representatives of the Renaissance claim to have raised the issue with the position of curator of the National Assembly.
“We have to realize that making life difficult later will create a situation in a few years in which only civil servants and lawyers will want to be deputies,” replies a former deputy who is very active in the Telegram group of elected officials. struck
“It’s really not good for democracy,” he said.
Another take on unemployment insurance reform?
The surprise of the losers at the obstacles encountered has another consequence: that of seeing the unemployment insurance reform in a different way. Although the duration of compensation will now be correlated with the state of the labor market, the previous legislature had already tightened the conditions for compensation for the unemployed.
“I did not imagine that it would be so difficult to find a job. And it is true that now I see things a little differently”, acknowledges a former deputy, former member of the Social Affairs Committee.
Some, however, refuse to complain, like the former renaissance deputy Gaël Le Bohec. This engineer who chose not to represent himself now runs a medical equipment startup. “There are many former deputies who are doing very well,” says this Breton. “I know we love to talk about what goes wrong, but honestly, there are great career successes as well.”
Enough to make one of the deputies contacted for this article shudder. “Yes, it is true that if we prepare our departure by relying on our networks, it is not the same as if we are until the end of our term,” he says.
Some, however, have a way out: a hypothetical dissolution in the coming months, which would allow them to try again for re-election in their old constituency.
Source: BFM TV
