The break is brutal with five years of shuttles between the golds of the hemicycle and their constituencies, and mix disappointment even anger, relief, desire to bounce back, to find the life before or to take a step back.
While there were many in the majority to consider their mandate as a “job” in 2017, some then novices have taken a liking to politics and promise to remain invested. “Count on me not to let go,” says one, narrowly beaten against the RN.
In the meantime, the immediate looks like an express dismissal. “We come to the Assembly, we empty our office, we greet all the staff, we go to see if we are entitled to unemployment, and we discover that we are entitled to half of our salary”, which allows ” to breathe before returning to professional life”, notes Sonia Krimi, LREM defeat Sunday in the second round in the Channel.
Outgoing deputies can receive unemployment benefit, modeled on that of the salaried employees’ scheme.
The graduate in economics and management notes that we have not forgotten her. “I did not expect to receive so many phone calls with job offers, and there I said let me breathe a little, because I am coming out of five years of emotion”.
Mireille Robert, another elected from the presidential camp, beaten in the first round, says she is “finally very relieved” to find her life back, with her winegrower husband in Aude.
Because with the thrust of the radical left and the far right, “the next five (years) are going to be very difficult” in the hemicycle.
A departure that she says “without bitterness”: the life of a deputy is “considerable work, for in the end little recognition”.
After five years when she “took only 15 days of vacation and read only reports”, Ms. Robert said she was impatient to return to her job as a school teacher.
The sexagenarian, “granny for six months”, also wants to resume singing and tai chi, a traditional Chinese gymnastics. “I will be able to cultivate my garden”, indoors and outdoors, she rejoices.
– “Politics, finished” –
Paula Forteza, elected of the French of Latin America who did not represent herself, has already turned the page. “Ready for new adventures!”: The former business manager, out of ban with LREM, posted on Twitter a “former deputy” card and a photo of her smiling with her baby, born during the legislature.
The environmentalist media Matthieu Orphelin says he does not regret the life of a deputy – he did not stand for re-election.
But his first initiative as a former elected official consisted of organizing, with 35 scientists, training in environmental and climate issues for new deputies, a stone’s throw from the Palais Bourbon.
“Politics is over for at least five to ten years,” he promises. “I want to change the mode of combat, I want to return to the militant world” associative, says the former engineer. His new place has already been found, he has just been appointed general manager of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO). “A childhood dream, I set up my first nature club when I was 10,” he rejoices.
The bitterness is stronger on the side of the beaten professional politicians, especially if, like the former Minister of the Interior and ex-boss of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner, their failure symbolizes the sanction vote inflicted on President Macron.
The now former member of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has a taste for haikus, these brief Japanese poems evoking things and feelings in a cleverly codified style.
Rather than a long speech, the former pillar of the hemicycle has just published one on Instagram, sybilline:
“Turn the page. With a breath of chafouin wind. Summer is coming”.
