She is the first woman to hold this position under the Fifth Republic: LREM MP Yaël Braun-Pivet was elected this Tuesday, June 28 as President of the National Assembly. Ephemeral Minister of Overseas and President of the Law Commission at the Palais Bourbon under the previous legislature, the one who was still a novice in 2017 was elected in the 2nd round by 242 votes, i.e. the absolute majority of the votes cast which was necessary.
The Assembly “has the face of France” and “the French urge us to work together, to debate rather than fight”, while the Macronists no longer have an absolute majority, pressed the new president. She spoke from the perch immediately after her election, in front of her husband and five children in the gallery. “We will have to be in action, in peaceful action. And the role of the President of the National Assembly is also to maintain a climate of peaceful debate between each other”, she then insisted. in front of the press.
The first ballot aimed at designating the new holder of the perch in the Assembly had not made it possible to obtain an absolute majority of the votes cast. After the one-to-one vote of the deputies at the podium, Dean José Gonzalez (RN), 79, indicated that of the 562 voters, there had been 9 blank or invalid ballots, and 553 votes cast, placing the absolute majority at 277.
Largely in the lead, Yaël Braun-Pivet, common candidate for LREM, MoDem and Horizons, had collected 238 votes, but not enough to win immediately. She was followed by Fatiha Keloua-Hachi (Nupes-PS) with 146 votes, then Sébastien Chenu (RN) with 90 votes, Annie Genevard (LR) with 61 votes and finally Nathalie Bassire (Liberties group, independents, overseas, territories ) with 18 voices. Sébastien Chenu having withdrawn, the second round, which had started immediately, left only female candidates.
Great favorite to become the first woman president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet had been re-elected in the 5th district of Yvelines, after the second round of the legislative elections on June 19, against the candidate LFI Sophie Thevenet ( 61.44%). A novice in politics five years ago, she had a slow start during the Benalla affair and then knew how to make allies, a necessity in the cauldron of the new Assembly. To the opposition, the 51-year-old minister said, after the loss of the absolute majority in the legislative elections: “We will have to work together, we will have to seek majorities of ideas” and “we are all accountable for this action collectively.”
Yaël Braun-Pivet has since changed position, but not mission. She left the government on Saturday June 25, after only a month and five days at the Ministry of Overseas, which earned her the anger of several elected officials in these territories.
The MP for Yvelines, president of the Law Commission for five years, has become a key figure at the Palais Bourbon. “I held the bar in the face of crises, from terrorism to the pandemic”, subjects of her commission, she argued. She praised her “new method of working, made of listening” and “co-construction” including with the oppositions which she was able to make herself appreciate. Women “must succeed in politics without imitating or adapting to a male model”, judge Yaël Braun-Pivet.
In 2017, the new deputy was chosen for the Law Commission, breaking the tradition of appointing an experienced person. A former criminal lawyer, this native of Nancy had put her “vocation” on hold to follow her husband, an executive at L’Oréal, seven years in Taiwan and Japan, and raise their five children. On her return, she became involved in Restos du Coeur, creating free consultations with lawyers and a reception center in the Yvelines.
His first steps in the Assembly earned him a trial “in amateurism” from the opposition but also from elected representatives of the majority. She then left her mark with collective field visits, in particular to around thirty penitentiary establishments.
In the summer of 2018, it’s a cold shower: the commission of inquiry into the former collaborator of the President of the Republic, Alexandre Benalla, of which she is co-rapporteur, exploded after the withdrawal of the opposition. Several deputies then accused Yaël Braun-Pivet of “protecting” the Elysée, the Insoumis Alexis Corbière qualifying it as “Benalla of the National Assembly”.
Target of anti-Semitic threats and sexist insults on social networks, Yaël Braun-Pivet will say a few months later that his “position was untenable from the start”. If her human qualities – “warm”, “not twisted” – are welcomed, she is sometimes criticized for being too “nice”. “It’s not my thing to be boring and authoritarian,” replies Yaël Braun-Pivet.
This descendant of “Slavic, Polish Jewish and German Jewish immigration, with grandparents who entered France on tourist visas” in the 1930s, prefers internal debates to public arm wrestling. Stubborn, Yaël Braun-Pivet made a strong commitment last year in favor of Olivier Falorni’s bill authorizing euthanasia. It also sought to move forward in the renovation of democratic life.
The deputy did not hide her ambitions in Macronie, presenting herself in 2018 for the perch before withdrawing her candidacy against Richard Ferrand who, she had however said, “does not embody renewal”. “She is taking her revenge”, slips a government source, while Richard Ferrand was beaten at the polls.
Her rejection in 2018 of the inclusion of the right to abortion in the preamble to the Constitution caught up with her over the weekend, after the questioning of the right to abortion in the United States. “There is no need to brandish fears” in France, she assured then. His words were widely relayed by LFI, denouncing a reversal of the majority, which has just proposed a constitutional revision.
