Yesterday Jean-Luc Mélenchon held a meeting in Saint-Étienne, which was attended by the only Nupes deputy of the Loire, l’Insoumise Andrée Taurinya. We met her before this event when she was preparing to inaugurate her parliamentary office located in her constituency.
It’s really an organized place to listen to people. In the campaign I said that if I was elected I would have one foot in the Assembly, one foot on the sidewalk and the road is paved there. Being one foot on the sidewalk means always being present in the mobilizations and precisely I come from the GRDF picket. Employees on strike for 5 weeks.
It is a room on the ground floor accessible to all those who want to know my work in the Assembly and who want to challenge me on all the subjects they wish, who have come even before we inaugurated it to solicit me on certain subjects, to warn me of their needs and it is very interesting, because it allows me to carry all this up to the assembly.
He is a local who is part of my riding, which is a riding with a lot of working class neighborhoods. We are not far from the city centre, but it is a popular area. It was the popular neighborhoods that got me elected. In these neighbourhoods, participation was important and this played for me.
The idea is that it is a place that listens to the inhabitants of my constituency and beyond, since I am the only Nupes deputy from the Loire, so I travel to other constituencies.
I have already held several public mandate review meetings. I did this in my constituency just a month after my election to the Bourse du Travail, then to Solaure. We recently organized a public meeting in La Cotonne, and as I also go beyond my constituency at the request of my French comrades Insoumise and Nupes, I also went to Roanne and Montbrison, this gives me the opportunity to explain in these cities what what happens in the Assembly.
And how is it going at the Assembly?
Well, it’s still very tense. The first vision I had was of the 89 far-right deputies who are sitting across from me.
We have seen this extreme right completely uninhibited, since there is even a deputy from the National Gathering who insulted one of ours with this famous ‘return to Africa’ which no one has forgotten and which was very shocking. We would not have imagined hearing him in the temple of the Republic, he has soiled our motto.
The extreme right that we see in the examination of the texts, with proposals that are always an escalation of security, of authoritarianism, we have clearly seen their position during the examination of the police reform.
We will also soon see their position when we examine the text “Asylum and Immigration”.
There had never been a far-right parliamentary group in the assembly and this presence has been seen in the news since you saw the actions of far-right identity groups who attacked our militants in Lyon, who attacked our deputies. Carlos Bilongo has already been insulted in the Assembly, but there were problems going to public rallies in Bordeaux and Lille. Something very serious is happening. We challenged Gérarld Darmanin in the hemicycle on these issues, we had been promised to dissolve these small groups, this already had to be done, it hasn’t been done yet so I doubt his willingness to do so.
Dissolving a group also means removing these premises, these means and if these members express themselves as such they can be arrested and taken to court.
The Argos group that attacked a shooting studio in the 10th arrondissement of Paris was made up of former Generation Identity activists…
Either there is the political will to arrest these people, or we let them and I see we let them.
Renaissance, LR and Raduno Nazionale voted with one hand against the increase in wages, against the increase in the minimum wage, against the thermal insulation of homes, against the ISF. Whenever we have been able to try to table our amendments in texts to get things going in the right direction, we have found that everyone votes equally together.
Well, there’s another battle that will take place, it’s that of pensions, we’ll see how it happens…
You spoke of the extreme right, there is the majority which multiplies the records to 49.3…
Because it’s not the majority, it’s a very relative majority. It happens sometimes that we manage to pass amendments against the government that go in the right direction, because sometimes Republicans vote with us, because sometimes we outnumber others in the House and that too, which is screwed over by a 49.3.
On all the texts that touch on finances, they can put as many as they want. So here we are at the tenth. It is a denial of democracy, what is happening is very serious.
It’s violent when you see Elisabeth Borne arrive very stiff, go up to the Tribune, for the names announce a 49.3 even before we discuss.
On December 11, Elisabeth Borne resorted to 49.3 laughing. What do you think ?
It’s unbearable. He told us “since I see that it cannot be discussed, I am obliged to resort to 49.3”, there we stood up and applauded her, because she was making fun of us. He’s really inflated.
As for Adrien Quattenens, what is your personal opinion?
I fully accept the collective decision we have taken, which is not a decision taken in haste, which has asked us for a time for reflection, for exchange. We decided a month ago to put everything in place to make a decision with peace of mind. We have appointed a working group of six people in parity. The day this sentence fell, we took a decision and we did so with several proposals that were voted on by secret ballot. This means that it is a decision of the parliamentary group of France Insoumise, of the 74 deputies that has been taken in respect of each, of each, which has involved a non-negligible sanction, because we have excluded for four months, until April 13th.
It means he won’t vote. This also means for us a reduction in our parliamentary resources, given that we have one less deputy. This means that we will certainly have one less oral question, less speaking time.
She was also offered an internship at a feminist association to try and reflect on her behavior. It is something that justice could have imposed on her, she didn’t do it, we do it. I think it’s good, it’s the condition we place on her return to our group.
