Still unknown fifteen months ago, Iñaki Echaniz has established himself at the forefront of the political scene. His portrait, a little over a year after his election in the 4th constituency of Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
“I will have to leave my Pyrenees… But I will come back” he said on the evening of his victory. For a little over a year, Iñaki Echaniz’s life has been divided between Paris and his Basque-Béarnais territory.
A life at 100 miles an hour for the man who won in the fourth constituency of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques with only 89 votes ahead of his opponent. In one evening, the former principal education advisor went from shadow to light, under the gold of the Palais Bourbon. Twenty-eight years old at the time and already a deputy, one of the youngest in the National Assembly. The elected socialist from Nupes has always claimed to have found his vocation very early.
Having been involved in politics for a very long time, he managed to bring his constituency back to the left and took back to the right the land of Jean Lassalle, a whimsical parliamentarian whose name has long resonated in the streets of the capital. Very quickly, the native of Oloron-Sainte-Marie knew how to distinguish himself. February 2023, the debate on pension reform ignites the assembly. Iñaki Echaniz then traps the Minister of Labor by repeating word for word a question asked 12 years earlier by Olivier Dussopt to Éric Woerth.
“Mr. Minister, my question is twofold, but it is very simple. Are you really going to take into account the proposals of the various social partners or are you going to impose a reform already decided by the Élysée? Are you going to back down or not the retirement age of sixty-two to sixty-four?”
At the time, the Minister of Labor was a socialist MP, and he was opposed to raising the legal retirement age from 60 to 62 years. An intervention to which Olivier Dussopt responded, without realizing that his interlocutor had used his own question asked a few years ago.
After the response from Olivier Dussopt, who had become a Macronist, the Basque-Béarnais parliamentarian was quick to react. “Mr. Minister, I thank you with my hand on my heart for having answered the question that you yourself asked on May 4, 2010 to Éric Woerth, minister in charge of Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension reform. Since then, you have returned your jacket to become minister of social destruction and the tax on life! “
A coup which will remain as one of the highlights of this first year as an MP. However, this is not what the former councilor of Oloron-Sainte-Marie wants to remember.
Around forty proposed laws
With his territory pegged to his body, he displays the card of a good communicator and invites the press for a first assessment of his action, one year and three months after his election. Forty-three written or co-signed legislative proposals, 200 interventions in committee or in the hemicycle and as many trips to its lands.
The opportunity for the MP to recall that he sets out in a document sent to all the inhabitants of his constituency his work carried out in the shadow of the cultural affairs committee or in the pastoralism, mountain or rurality study groups.
Local issues, such as the Oloron-Sainte-Marie hospital, or the provision of care, also kept him very busy, as did the question of housing.
“A year ago, I was the only MP to speak about this crisis which is hitting our territories, about this speculation which is hitting Béarn, the Basque Country and many other territories. I felt alone and today “Today it’s a subject which is in the parliamentary media headlines and which we should soon debate. I hope so, in any case. This is the commitment I have had from the government in the next finance bill and in a text that I will present with a Renaissance colleague”, he explains.
And then there is the party. If more than a year after its creation, the electoral alliance of left-wing parties in the National Assembly fails to find a second wind, Iñaki Echaniz remains one of the fervent defenders of NUPES. With the next European elections potentially explosive for the left in their sights.
“We need to be able to discuss together and get away from these media controversies on Twitter, get away from the politics of tweeting. People are waiting for us to be able to change their lives, and I think that the left is today capable of unite and change life: at the European level, but also for the next elections, whether municipal or presidential.”
At thirty years old, Iñaki Echaniz has understood his responsibilities. In fifteen months, the deputy managed to free himself from the imposing shadow of his predecessor.
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