Paris (AFP)

The LREM deputy Jacques Maire, co-rapporteur of the pension reform, announced on Tuesday to AFP to seize the ethics officer of the National Assembly on his actions with the insurer Axa, while the rebels reproach him for a "conflict of interests".

"I own shares as part of my past activity. I left Axa at the end of 2012. Since then, I have had no particular contact with insurance", explained the "walker", whose career has fluctuated between ministerial and private offices.

"I am seizing the ethics officer. Since there is on the part of certain people of an opposition group the will to create difficulties, to create questions in public opinion. We have someone whose is the job, this ethics officer, I take it so as not to leave ambiguities "and" see if there is a conflict of interest or not ", he added.

He announced that he would send a letter to the ethics officer of the National Assembly on Tuesday. In his declaration of interests, transmitted to the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP), Jacques Maire indicated that he owned 13,836 shares in the insurer Axa.

Since then, this number "has slightly increased" because "there were stock options" which have expired, but there has been no "substantial change" which would have required updating its declaration of interests, he said.

"I did not sell the shares. For me, it is a classic savings product, like life insurance. (...) There is no longer any active management of this savings. It’s dormant for me. "

"It was declared to the HATVP, I'm not hiding anything, it's public. And I didn't at all consider that there was any conflict of interest, because it is not a text on French savings products is a text on the pay-as-you-go scheme, "he added.

In the part of the bill of which he is rapporteur, "we deal exclusively with social issues, arduousness, long careers", he underlines.

According to him, there is among the rebels "the desire to use any possibility of weakening the majority and to fuel hatred on social networks".

Regarding his actions, he "does not envisage anything at all", because "I think there is no form of difficulty".

For several days, the rebellious deputy Mathilde Panot has accused Jacques Maire of a "conflict of interest" with her actions.

At the end of the afternoon on Tuesday, she again called out to Jacques Maire in the hemicycle: "You cannot continue to be rapporteur for this law without casting a suspicion on it".

"You announce to seize the deontologist after four weeks of debates in committee and in hemicycle, you must explain it", she added.

"There is one person in this Assembly who is in charge of seeing whether or not there are ethical problems. He is not a member of La France insoumise, he is an ethics officer", replied Jacques Mayor, supported by co-rapporteur Nicolas Turquois (MoDem).

The "walkers" had earlier denounced "grotesque innuendos".

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