A week after Nahel’s death in Nanterre, the National Assembly was found upside down. Not so much by the noise or the disorder: the session of the questions to the government this Tuesday was even surprisingly calm. Much more in any case than at the height of the pension reform crisis. No, upside down, because it’s as if the positions had been reversed. La France insoumise (LFI), singled out for several days for not having “called for calm” in the suburbs, found itself on the bench, if not ministers, in any case accused. And the Prime Minister, followed by the majority, has almost turned into the leader of the opposition, bringing the charge against the rebellious.
These roles were distributed, very clearly, from the first question, asked by the president of the LFI group Mathilde Panot. “You want to make us bear the responsibility for the anger”, launches the deputy of Val-de-Marne. “Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss,” a large part of the Chamber responds in chorus, from the majority to the far right. “When will you take our proposals seriously?” asks President Panot. ” Never ! “, still resume majority, right and extreme right. In Elisabeth Borne’s response, there is no element of response – but this is often the game when faced with the “political” questions of the opposition -, but a full-scale attack by rebellious France.
play on velvet
“I am looking for your statements and I only hear excuses (…) You are looking for culprits everywhere, in all our republican institutions, except among the perpetrators of the violence (…) You have chosen excess, verbal brutality and constant excuse for violence” The Prime Minister finally repeats what she had said in the morning in front of the parliamentarians of the majority, through a tirade that will hurt: “When your deputies reject any call for calm, you leave the republican field . When a deputy says that the end justifies the means, you are stepping outside the Republican field. When your leader talks about a license to kill for the police and the death penalty for young people in the neighborhoods and treats us as a watchdog, you are stepping outside the Republican field. »
The vigor of the response – rather of the counter-offensive – arouses warm applause from the majority, but also from some RN benches. Rebellious France remains visibly groggy, ultimately very calm. It must be said that the rolling fire of accusations does not weaken in the questions of the majority, in the responses of the government, even at LR. When the rebels wake up a bit during a response from Elisabeth Borne, she turns to them: “Do you have a problem when I talk about elected officials attached to the values of the Republic? “The tenant of Matignon plays on velvet. With each LFI question, it is easy to stick to the form: “Make Jacques Brel’s sentence lie, you are not indeed revolutionaries, you are little rebels. Be at the rendezvous of the Republic, ”attacks Gérald Darmanin, without further protests on the LFI benches. Nothing either when Éric Dupond-Moretti takes up the expression of “incendiary France” from Jordan Bardella, president of the RN.
“In France, equality is a theoretical concept”
The contrast plays to the full in the Nupes. Through the questions of the communist Stéphane Peu, the deputy Générations Benjamin Lucas, but especially that of the president of the environmental group, Cyrielle Châtelain. She denounces the violence (“burning schools, looting shops, attacking elected officials, will never be acts of justice”), while speaking no less radical than that of LFI: “Reality, Madam Prime Minister, it is that in France today, certain lives are worth less than others, certain territories are worth less than others. In France, equality is a theoretical concept. “And to propose an” act of appeasement “: modification of the law on self-defense, the return of the local police, measures to fight against discrimination and racism. So was it possible?
In her response, after having awarded the patent of republicanism that she has given to each group, except for LFI and the RN, Élisabeth Borne must risk taking stock of Macronist action for six years. Inevitably a little less effective than when you take on the role of Leader of the Opposition. At the other end of the chessboard and the Hemicycle, Marine Le Pen – ultra-solemn – saw fit to wait until the end of the session to try to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. But in the face of “what have you done to turn our country among the most courteous, the most elegant and the sweetest on earth to make it a hell?” “, the Prime Minister has an easy task: “Once again, the only thing you are capable of is caricature. After a week of urban violence, in a Hemicycle reputed to be so flammable, Elisabeth Borne therefore ultimately did not have such a bad day in the Assembly.