Quatennens case, Peyrat case… Political parties have been shaken in recent months by cases of domestic violence, convictions in the key. And if the second named ended up withdrawing from the race for the legislative elections, the quiet continuity of the career of the deputy from the North questions the Assembly. It was, moreover, on the day Adrien Quatennens returned to the Hemicycle, on January 11, that Aurore Bergé and Sacha Houlié presented a bill creating a mandatory ineligibility penalty for the authors of certain violence.
The text aims to extend the mandatory additional penalty of ineligibility, for a period of five or ten years, to a series of aggravated acts of violence: those committed against a minor under the age of 15, a vulnerable person, the spouse, with a weapon, or in the event of racist motivation, resulting in total incapacity for work of less than or equal to 8 days, or not resulting in ITT. “Our objective is to guarantee the exemplary nature of elected officials”, affirmed the boss of the Renaissance group before the Law Commission, which validated the text on Tuesday.
“We all have to sweep in front of our door”
But reservations have emerged in all camps, many deputies seeing in the text the translation of the principle “a news item, a law”. “We are very reserved on this text”, said together the allied groups Horizons and MoDem. “It’s a communication coup”, pointed out Ian Boucard (LR), who rather judges that Adrien Quatennens “must be beaten at the ballot box”. “We must never give in to the dictatorship of emotion,” added Pascale Bordes (RN).
The left-wing deputies also expressed their reluctance, and Danièle Obono (LFI) was the most virulent in pointing out “a crude and dangerous instrumentalization of justice and the fight against violence against women for basely political purposes”. Each camp referred cases of deputies or ministers under investigation, and Aurore Bergé admitted that “we must all sweep in front of (our) door”.
She also recalled that the bill, if adopted by Parliament, will not be retroactive and will not apply to Adrien Quatennens. “Some facts are not diverse”, she defended, arguing that her text was “a signal sent to the magistrates”. It was validated by a show of hands by the Law Commission, and will be examined by the Assembly next Tuesday.