Paris (AFP)
Gérard Larcher, in favor of maintaining regional and departmental elections in June, would seize the Constitutional Council if the government presented a bill to postpone them, announced the President of the Senate on Sunday on LCI.
"We do not confine democracy. (...) The date of an election is not decided on the basis of an opportunity, but of the law and respect for the Constitution", he stressed.
The government asked all the mayors on Friday to vote by Monday noon on health measures for the regional and departmental polls on June 13 and 20.
The executive had confirmed last week that it favored "at this stage" the maintenance of these dates, on which it also sought their opinion from the parties, political groups and presidents of the assemblies.
Debates on this issue should be held Tuesday in the Assembly and Wednesday in the Senate.
In a letter to Prime Minister Jean Castex, Mr. Larcher relied Friday on the opinion of the Scientific Council and on the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron of a reopening of schools on April 26, colleges and high schools on May 7 and places of culture from mid-May, and considered that "the right to vote, guaranteed by article 3 of the Constitution, must be exercised".
On LCI Sunday, he was surprised at the hypothesis that these reopening would be accompanied by a postponement of the vote - which could also, according to him, pose a constitutional problem.
"Since there are uncertainties in respect of the constitution, legal uncertainties, if the government were to ask Parliament to postpone these elections, then on the new text I would refer the matter to the constitutional council," he said. ad.
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