The Prime Minister pleads “common sense” and believes that cumulating a local mandate and a national function can be “very useful”. The Senate handed the question on the agenda a few days ago.
Le Monde with AFP
While the return of the debates around the non-accumulation of the mandates invited in recent days to Parliament, Jean Castex, questioned on this subject Friday, October 22, said for a “arrangement” of the text for mayors of “municipalities of modest size”.
“I think that the principle of non-cumulation is a good principle,” took care to emphasize the Prime Minister, interviewed by the France-Presse agency during a trip to his city of Prades (Pyrenees-Orientales ) Mr. Castex then explained his vision:
“We can see that mayor of a big city, president of department these are full duties. But when it comes to municipalities of modest size, I think it would be very useful for the exercise of National mandates to have feet on earth, this permanent contact with reality.
It should not be on one side local elected officials, on the other elected officials. So I will see it more as a layout than as a questioning of the principle. It’s common sense. “
The principle of non-cumulative mandates criticized
The Prime Minister has also entrusted that the mandate of Mayor of Prades, suspended since his appointment to Matignon by the Head of State in July 2020, “lacks” and that his mayor experience “serves him” constantly in his decision-making.
“Here we are in sizes of communities where we take everything live. We can not delegate, subdelegate. It is very trainer,” he explained in his office, in front of the photo one of his predecessors at the Town Hall of Prades, who was also senator and general adviser.
The Declaration of Jean Castex intervenes a few days after the Senate on the right of the day before the parliamentary agenda this question, against the opinion of the government and the opposition of the left.
The Senate has adopted on 12 October, at first reading, a centrist bill to relax the 2014 reform and since 2017, which prohibits the cumulation of parliamentary mandates (MP or senator) and functions. local executives (Mayor, President of General Council or Department …). However, it allows the holder of a national mandate to be a local level.
The law of the right senators law must now be presented at first reading before the members of Parliament in November by the Union Group of Democrats and independent, who will defend the text during his parliamentary niche.
In May 2017, Emmanuel Macron had asked the newly appointed ministers to resign from their local executives, yet authorized by law. But since its adoption in 2014, the law on the non-cumulation of mandates is, very criticized by national elected officials. The latter feel that it promotes the emergence of parliamentarians “off-ground”, cut off from the reality of the land.