• Tweeter

  • republish

Senator LR Philippe Bas, Chairman of the Senate Law Commission, who is investigating the Benalla case on July 24, 2018, in the Senate. JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP

After the Minister of the Interior, the secretary general of the Elysee or the chief of staff of Emmanuel Macron, it is the turn of Christophe Castaner, head of La République en Marche to be auditioned by the Senate. Close to the Head of State and also Secretary of State for relations with Parliament, it will be heard on Tuesday, July 31 by the Committee on the Laws of the Senate chaired by Philippe Bas (Senator LR), a commission which - unlike that of the Assembly - continues to investigate the Benalla case. Without blows, but with perseverance.

It's been more than a week since Philippe Bas gloated. " Fortunately there is still the Senate to serve as a counter-power, " he blustered on Monday on Twitter. The chairman of the Senate Law Commission embodies the renewed health of the Upper House of Parliament, dominated by the right-wing opposition. He's the one leading the auditions .

#AffaireBenalla Fortunately there is still the Senate to serve as a counter-power and allow in France there is a democratic debate.

Philippe Bas (@BasPhilippe) July 30, 2018

At the same time phlegmatic and catchy, Philippe Bas takes a malicious pleasure to tickle his interlocutors on technical points, to administer to them lessons of law and to throw them in the passage of the well-felt pikes. All in a cozy atmosphere that contrasts with the shocks, noise and slamming doors of the Assembly Committee.

" We are not in the political " bickering " , says Republican Senator Fabienne Keller, but we are determined to identify the dysfunctions that led to this affair. "

The senators were belittled as representatives of the "old world", they hold with the Benalla affair their revenge: they have already auditioned 20 people against 8 in the National Assembly, where the Macronist party reigns supreme.

Two motions of censorship discussed Tuesday at the Assembly

Very rare: it is not one, but two motions of censure that MPs will consider in the Assembly on Tuesday afternoon. They follow the Benalla affair: one filed by the right-wing Republican party, the other by the three left-wing parties, the PS, the Communists and France Insoumise. These two motions will be put to the vote of the parliamentarians, a symbolic initiative.

The motion of censure is the parliamentary tool that can overthrow the government. To be adopted, it must be voted by the absolute majority, that is to say at least 289 deputies.

The two motions presented on Tuesday have no chance of being adopted, since the opposition parties are in the minority, and the In March deputies alone represent more than 300 seats.

Members may at any time file a motion of censure, it is necessary to gather at least 58 signatures for it to be presented to the Assembly.

The right has been able to do it easily: the Republicans have 103 deputies, the left it had to gather the forces of the Insoumis, communists and socialists to reach the threshold.

The Rogue have already announced that they would vote the Republican motion. The Socialists, for their part, refuse to vote on the motion of the right, declaring that there is too much difference between the two parties. Marine Le Pen, President of the National Gathering, said she would vote both texts.

This is the first time in Emmanuel Macron's five-year term that opposition MPs have disavowed the government by using the motion of censure.

► Listen also: Jean-Pierre Sueur on the Benalla affair: "My goal is to know the truth"