On Thursday, October 31st, the Rassemblement National (RN) was given a day to present its draft legislation to the French National Assembly for a vote. The day ended in a series of failures, demonstrating that all the political parties are united in their opposition to Marine Le Pen’s party, regardless of the urgency of the issues addressed.
Several times a year, the MPs in a parliamentary group have the opportunity to present their own bills for a vote in the National Assembly. The day of October 31st was devoted to the ‘parliamentary niche’ of the Rassemblement National.
The party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella had deliberately chosen to submit texts to MPs for consideration that were likely to attract a large number of votes, whether on the Right or the Left—depending on the subject. But hostility to the RN won out and no legislative victory was recorded at the end of a trying day of debate.
The day began with a proposal to repeal the pension reform, but the bill had previously been gutted by the work done in committee. The RN’s efforts to restore the text to its original form were rejected by the president of the Assembly on the grounds of cost to the public purse.
Rapporteur Thomas Ménagé attacked the reform as “unfair and pointless,” and denounced “the sectarianism of the Left,” which had refused to support the text in committee, even though it is officially in favour of repealing it. A battle is underway between the RN and the left-wing coalition to obtain the repeal of the pension reform. The New Popular Front will in turn present a repeal bill during its own parliamentary niche on November 28th. The RN has announced that it will not hesitate to vote in favour of the NFP text.
Another failure was the withdrawal without a vote of a bill on the deportation of foreign criminals. “No, immigration is not an opportunity,” said RN deputy Lionel Tivoli, before pointing out the dangers of “mass immigration” in France. “Disorderly, massive, irrational, out-of-control immigration is a problem and obviously you know it,” added Marine Le Pen, at the heart of a violent discussion between the RN and the Left. The bill was finally withdrawn after its key article was deprived of its effects through amendments. The RN pointed the finger of blame at Nicolas Daragon, minister delegate for day-to-day security and an aide to Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who voted with the Left, even though his ministry has championed tough talk on security and immigration in recent weeks.
Early in the evening, the RN also ended up withdrawing another text, intended to remove the energy performance diagnosis criterion for renting accommodation, which had just been gutted by a coalition ranging from the Left to the Macronists.
As required by the rules of procedure of the National Assembly, the debates were interrupted at midnight, in the middle of the examination of a text aimed at introducing a new version of the minimum sentences introduced under Nicolas Sarkozy and repealed under François Hollande, wanted by the RN to “restore meaning” to penal policy.
Despite a significant increase in the number of seats in the National Assembly—the RN and its allies now have a group of 142 MPs—no legislative progress seems possible given the organised sectarianism of the other political formations, which have developed a strategy of systematic obstruction against the RN, regardless of their interests or the substance of the issues.
