Paris (AFP)
The rebellious member Caroline Fiat wanted to pay tribute on Tuesday to the National Assembly to the nurse stabbed Thursday by a patient in Deux-Sèvres, by demanding a minute of silence, a move which President Richard Ferrand (LREM) opposed ).
"We spent the weekend hearing, despite ourselves, only about the municipal election in Paris, obscuring all the news, especially on February 14 where the hospital staff mobilized to proclaim their love for worse still, the murder of a young colleague (...) stabbed to death by a patient has been overlooked, "said the caregiver by profession during questions to the government.
She was referring to a 30-year-old nurse, killed on Thursday by stabbing by a patient of a psychiatric unit in Thouars (Deux-Sèvres). The young suspect has since been charged.
"As soon as a state official dies in the exercise of his functions, it is customary to pay tribute to him by a minute of silence in this hemicycle", continued the deputy, saying her "great surprise" that a request to this effect was refused in the morning at the conference of Presidents of the Assembly.
Very moved, the elected LFI therefore proposed to use the remaining speaking time to pay tribute to the nurse on behalf of her group, several elected representatives of the left rising in stride.
"Mrs. Fiat, we are all sensitive to the emotion caused by the drama you have just mentioned, but as I indicated to the president of your group, the practice limits the practice of minutes of silence to cases exceptional and solemn, and there cannot be in this hemicycle minutes of silence on the initiative of a deputy or a group ", answered Richard Ferrand.
"Let me also say that on all the benches sit health professionals and that everyone here shares the grief of the bereaved family," he continued, before withdrawing the floor to Caroline Fiat, who was standing Teary-eyed.
Associating "with the sadness of the nation", the new Minister of Health Olivier Véran for his part announced that he would go "in the coming days to Thouars, without press, to meet the" hospital "teams, like did it on Friday the "ministerial delegate for mental health", Franck Bellivier.
He answered a question from the deputy (PS) of Gironde Alain David on the situation of hospitals.
The CGT of the Center Hospitalier Nord Deux-Sèvres, where the nurse worked, was indignant Tuesday evening in a statement of the tribute refused to the Assembly, and of the remarks of Mr. Ferrand on the practice of minutes of limited silence to "exceptional cases".
"These words demonstrate, once again, the way of looking at caregivers in this country," deplored the CGT-CHNDS, deeming the nurse's family "insulted", and "the entire caregiver community flouted". She demanded the resignation of the President of the Assembly, and that their colleague Elodie "may receive the national tribute which is due to her in the form of the minute of silence which has been refused to her".
© 2020 AFP