The office of the National Assembly meets at 2:30 p.m., the day after an incident in the hemicycle which led to the suspension of the question session in the government.
Le Monde
What does Grégoire de Fournas risk? In the aftermath of an electric session, suspended as a result of racist content launched by this deputy national rally in the direction of the deputy of Insoumise France (LFI) Carlos Martens Bilongo, the fate of the elected official of Gironde is now between hands of the office of the National Assembly.
The body, which meets at 2:30 p.m., may decide any sanctions to apply to M. de Fournas, who continues to challenge the racist nature of his intervention. According to the report of the National Assembly, Mr. de Fournas shouted “that he returned to Africa!” While his colleague from LFI asked a question on a boat from the NGO SOS Méditerranée with 234 migrants on board rescued off Libya. M. de Fournas ensures that he was talking about the SOS Mediterranean boat and not his colleague.
“Given the gravity of the facts” and “legitimate emotion” aroused by these words, the president of the assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, almost immediately pronounced a suspension of the session before putting it FIN – A extremely rare gesture – and announced the emergency convocation of the office of the National Assembly to decide a possible sanction to pronounce against the deputy Rn.
If the deputy can be sanctioned by his peers, the Constitution protects him on the other hand from any criminal prosecution: article 26 specifies that “no member of the Parliament can be prosecuted, sought, decree, detained or judged at the ‘Occasion of the opinions or votes issued by him in the exercise of his functions “.
who composes the office?
The office is a kind of board of directors of the National Assembly: it brings together the president, the six vice-presidents, two of whom are members of the RN, the three quaestors and the twelve secretaries.
What are the reprehensible acts?
- If the elected official “delivers to demonstrations disturbing the order or which causes a tumultuous scene”;
- If he “delivers himself to a personal questioning, who challenges another deputy or who addresses one or more of his colleagues insults, provocations or threats”, if he “[makes] guilty of outrages or provocations “to the Assembly or its President or to the President of the Republic, ministers or senators;
- If he “calls on violence in public session” or if he “[makes] guilty of a assault within the assembly of the Assembly”.
What are the applicable sanctions that decide?
Sanctions can be of several orders:
- A reminder of the simple order, which can be directly pronounced by the president in session and does not lead to financial sanctions;
- A reminder to order with registration in the minutes, which can be pronounced by the president alone or by the office and which provides “the deprivation, for a month, of the quarter of the parliamentary indemnity allocated to the deputy “;
- Simple censorship or with temporary exclusion, which can only be pronounced by a vote of the Assembly, on the proposal of the office. If the first leads to “deprivation, for a month, of half of the parliamentary allowance allocated to the deputy”, the second is much heavier. It provides for “the deprivation, for two months, of half of the parliamentary indemnity allocated to the deputy” and “leads to the prohibition to take part in the work of the assembly and to reappear in the palace of the assembly until The expiration of the fifteenth day of the session following the one where the sentence was pronounced “. In the case of a recurrence, if censorship with temporary exclusion is applied for the second time to a deputy, exclusion extends to thirty days of session.
How does the session take place?
“When a sentence is proposed other than a reminder to the simple order, the office hears the deputy concerned or, at the request of the latter, one of his colleagues on his behalf,” said the regulation . The regulations do not specify under what conditions the decisions are made within the office.