The elected representatives of the Republic represent the people, their good sides, as well as their faults. “Behind the armor, there is a man or a woman,” recalls Nicolas Turquois. On Thursday, the latter's armor cracked. The MoDem deputy, close to the Macronists, is flitting between TV sets and the various media this Friday to explain the altercation that he is accused of having provoked the day before in the National Assembly.
While the deputies debated the stormy pension reform during the parliamentary niche of La France insoumise (LFI), “the tension rose,” recalls the elected official. During a session suspension, Nicolas Turquois came forward “in a determined manner” and “brutally” insulted one of his socialist colleagues and neighbors on the bench, Mickaël Bouloux, says the latter. “I was passive and Mr. Turquois came towards me, he was beside himself, he took me to task in a brusque, confused discussion, he put a hand on me and made gestures which created an uproar” , adds the elected official from Ille-et-Vilaine. “I received the anger of Mr. Turquois,” he summarizes.
The reasons for the irritation? Nicolas Turquois accuses the rebellious deputies of having called on voters to drown him with questions and comments by email. “I am one of the deputies who tabled the most amendments concerning the pension reform and because of this, I received hundreds of messages, including insults, because of this very aggressive communication,” he reports. Methods of “name and shame and dissemination of contact details” that he “does not accept” and denounces vehemently, saying he is the victim of a harassment campaign. “I spoke loudly but there was not a word of insult and no physical will, it's not my style,” assures the deputy close to the presidential camp. He nevertheless admits to having already lost his temper last July against deputies of the National Rally.
From tension to cracking
Colleagues intervened, notably the former minister and president of the MoDem group Marc Fesneau, to try to calm Nicolas Turquois and ask him to come down and leave the Hemicycle. The bailiffs intervene. “They are there to ensure that the debates take place in the best conditions and invited Mr. Turquois to bring out what he did,” adds a parliamentary source. But before going out, he meets Antoine Léaument, the elected representative of La France insoumise whom he accuses of being at the origin of the harassment campaign of which he claims to be a victim. “When I saw Mr. Turquois extend his finger towards Mickaël Bouloux, who is rather nice, I asked him to come out, I was afraid that he would become violent,” testifies Antoine Léaument. “He told me that it was my fault before being arrested by the bailiffs and two deputies,” adds the LFI elected official from Essonne.
“I broke down,” concedes Nicolas Turquois who remembers a “very lively, very aggressive” exchange with his political opponent whom he describes as “rapacious, a scavenger”. He nevertheless pleads a “human reaction and a situation linked to fatigue [qu’il] regrets.” For his part, Antoine Léaument believed that he was going to “get one,” “Nicolas Turquois could have come to blows, he was arrested before,” he maintains. Antoine Léaument is not “asking for sanctions” but is now waiting for an apology from Nicolas Turquois, “that would be a minimum”, he believes. A minimum with regard to his person but also to voters in order to mitigate the consequences of this “bad example”. The main person concerned has already made his mea culpa to Mickaël Bouloux and “all the deputies” through the media but does not intend to ask for forgiveness from the rebellious elected official. If he has not yet planned to file a complaint for harassment, he is “waiting to see what happens next” and intends to explain himself to the office of the National Assembly.
Our National Assembly file
The atmosphere is therefore not yet calm on the eve of the weekend and in light of weeks which still promise to be turbulent while motions of censure against the government in place are in the pipeline. As long as there is no majority bloc on the benches of the Assembly, such situations could recur even if the deputies believe, like Mickaël Bouloux, that this type of behavior “has no place in the 'Hemicycle'.
