On the sidelines of the debate on the repeal of the pension reform, Thursday, November 28 in the evening, the ushers of the National Assembly and elected officials had to intervene between several deputies, following an incident caused in the hemicycle by MoDem deputy Nicolas Turquois, according to parliamentary sources and images.
Mr. Turquois climbed into the aisles of the hemicycle during a session suspension around 10:30 p.m., appearing threatening towards a socialist deputy, Mickaël Bouloux. “My family was threatened! And these are people from your village! »would have thrown first to second, according to Le Figaro. According to a source at MoDem, the deputy for Vienne complained to Mr. Bouloux about “threats, insults and phone calls” received because of his opposition to the repeal of the pension reform, then discussed by the deputies within the framework of the niche of La France insoumise (LFI).
The “rebellious” deputy Antoine Léaument said he was then threatened by Mr. Turquois, when he asked him to leave. “I told him 'if you are violent, get out'”. He came down, he came to me and said “because of you I am threatened””declared Mr. Léaument on BFM-TV and LCI, believing that the elected official from the presidential camp “is completely out of control”. As the situation worsened, the president of the MoDem group Marc Fesneau intervened, as well as other elected officials and bailiffs, so that Mr. Turquois left the Hemicycle, which he ended up doing, under the boos from the left, as shown in images shot by the “rebellious” deputy for Haute-Vienne, Damien Maudet, posted on the social network X.
The MP denounces “unacceptable methods of LFI”.
When the debates resumed, the session president Xavier Breton (LR) announced that he would suggest to the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet to discuss the incident at the next meeting of the office of the Assembly, with a view to a sanction, notably demanded in the hemicycle by the socialist Arthur Delaporte. Antoine Léaument criticized the incident and thanked the bailiffs for intervening, believing that otherwise it would have been “took a donut”while the president of the MoDem group also took the floor to say that he “regretted” the actions of his colleague.
Friday morning, Mr. Turquois affirmed on BFM-TV that he “regret” to have “failed” eassured you that he would apologize to the socialist deputy Mickaël Bouloux. However, he denounced “unacceptable methods of La France insoumise”. The elected official thus mentioned a “list of deputies who tabled amendments” to oppose the proposed repeal of the pension reform, “widely distributed by the France insoumise networks” and sent ” has [ses] loved ones »a way according to him to do « pression » on these. Mr. Turquois admitted to having gone to Mr. Léaument “dynamically” but assures not to have “had no desire to beat him up”.
“We can only deplore [l’incident] », reacted government spokesperson Maud Bregeon, interviewed Friday morning on France 2, “because I believe that in the end, beyond individualities, it is the image that we send back collectively”. If the minister from the Macronist ranks deemed it legitimate “that the debate takes place, that it is sometimes tense, that the deputies defend their convictions, support their positions through amendments”, she described the images from Thursday evening as“inadmissible” and of “deplorable”.
The incident took place at the end of a tense day, during which the deputies of the government coalition (MoDem, Renaissance, Horizons, Les Républicains) slowed down the debates on a proposed LFI law aimed at repealing the reform of retirements of 2023, in order to avoid arriving at a vote which would have been lost for them, due to the support for the text of the New Popular Front and the elected representatives of the National Rally.
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This is not the first time that Nicolas Turquois has failed to come to blows with some of his colleagues, as reported Le Figaro. The latter had clashed several weeks ago with far-right deputies Aymeric Salmon and Jean-Philippe Tanguy, in the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes.
