Very busy day in the chamber. This Friday, the debates on the pension reform were, for several hours, overshadowed by a controversy surrounding a tweet from the LFI deputy Thomas Portes, where he set foot on a balloon with the image of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.
After long minutes of suspension of the session, the office of the National Assembly requested that Thomas Portes be excluded for 15 days from the chamber, that is, the highest possible sanction against a deputy. A petition calmly voted by the deputies.
Renaissance and the RN Headwind
When meeting for a disciplinary case, the Assembly office has four levels of sanctions. This ranges from a simple call to order to the fourth level that has been chosen: temporary exclusion for 15 days and an economic sanction of deprivation of half of the parliamentary allowance for two months.
Obviously, the rebel France did not want a sanction. For their part, Agrupación Nacional and Renacimiento wanted the maximum sanction to be maintained.
The Socialist Party and the environmental group wanted a sanction, unlike the LFI, but not the maximum sanction: just a call to order. According to Cyrielle Chatelain, an EELV deputy, if the RN was asking for the most it was to “get rid of the Fournas affair”, who had also been sanctioned last November after racist statements.
When choosing the sanction to define against Thomas Portes, the Modem, member of the presidential majority, had a less fixed and less harsh position than Renaissance, not necessarily wanting to go to a maximum position.
“Sorries” but no apologies
However, some Renaissance deputies are beginning to feel uncomfortable with the idea of putting Grégoire de Fournas and Thomas Portes on the same level.
“I am concerned about the returned symbol and the consequences this may have for the future. I wonder. Penalty: obviously! Maximum? I don’t know,” a majority deputy confided to BFMTV.
Outside the Assembly office, Thomas Portes used the term “repentance,” according to a Nupes source. But he did not issue an official apology. Finally, the deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis admitted that he “should have taken off his deputy scarf for this photo”.
Source: BFM TV
