A veteran of the Assembly and an expert on financial issues, the centrist MP led the debates on the “purchasing power package”, annoying members of the majority and attracting the sympathy of the opposition.
The Assembly’s poltergeist occupies seat 233. From these heights, Charles de Courson has once again played a strange trick on the presidential camp, as the examination of the draft amending finance bill was ending on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. Realizing that the revaluation of pensions was lower than inflation, the centrist elected official, a member of the catch-all group Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories (Liot), took action. He presented an amendment adding 500 million euros to the basket, adopted by the coalition oppositions despite the government’s disapproval.
By his own admission, the proposal was flawed. “My true intention, he says, was to get a commitment from the government for the future. But they didn’t answer me, so we vote. Then, [le ministre de l’Economie] Bruno Le Maire, annoyed, asks to see me. I tell him: the day you answer the questions, things will go better. Now, we are having a second deliberation to cancel my amendment… and you answer the question,” which was done.
“Oppositions like me”
This is not the first time, and probably not the last, that the wily deputy of Marne has made the executive cough. On Saturday, he had already made it swallow a check for 120 million euros, to compensate the departments for the increase in the RSA. “In general, he smiled, The opposition likes me: I am neither in LFI nor in the RN, so my amendments can be voted on without fear – sometimes even by members of the majority! An ace in financial matters, Courson is respected on all benches and feared by ministers for his expertise and his outspokenness. A figure in the Assembly, he is now its oldest member: he has been a member continuously since 1993.
Liberal, European and conservative, the man is above all worried about public debt, the decline of which seems to him to prepare the conditions for a “authoritarian regime”. An LREM MP, vexed, is surprised to see him wearing “amendments contrary to what he defended”, and suspects the Marnais of “to indulge in certain conveniences.” “My colleagues tell me: you are becoming very expensive, recognizes the person concerned. I tell them that they have the opportunity to correct me by eliminating the 12.7 billion euros that the State will pay to the private shareholders of EDF to buy back their shares.”
“A burnout almost every year”
Despite his record of service, this former member of the Modem has never been part of a government, perhaps paying for his stiff back. “I don’t give a damn! he assures. If a president calls me, I say: OK, but there are conditions. The situation is dramatic, will you support me constantly to straighten out public finances? Otherwise, give it to anyone, it will make them so happy.” This bachelor with a reputation as an ascetic submits an average of 200 amendments per budget project. The latter, when adopted, “He suffers from burnout almost every year which leads him to sleep therapy,” testifies his friend Hervé Morin, president of the New Center.
His voice has sometimes been heard on other subjects: he was the intransigent rapporteur of the commission of inquiry into the Cahuzac affair and, during the last five-year term, denounced as worthy of «Vichy» the anti-rioters law. The expression was criticized. But no one dared to reproach this son and grandson of resistance fighters, whose grandfather died in deportation, for not realizing its weight.
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