"Omerta", "inaction" or even "resistance" to change at the Palais Bourbon... Criticisms have multiplied in recent years, from a few deputies, employee unions or the former collective Chair collaborator.
The CFDT, SNCP, Solidaires and Unsa unions of these 2,000 "little hands" who assist the deputies point to a turnover which has "exploded" under this five-year term, due "in particular to situations of moral harassment".
Complaints are rare.
But the press regularly echoes industrial tribunal proceedings against deputies, from the LFI Muriel Ressiguier for moral harassment at the start of the legislature to the elected LREM Stéphane Trompille, convicted of sexual harassment in 2020. Accusations denied each time by the interested parties.
Muriel Ressiguier (LFI) at the National Assembly in Paris, June 26, 2019 Thomas SAMSON AFP / Archives
"Strong expectation"
Night work, promiscuity, power relations... Faced with conditions conducive to harassment, the National Assembly strengthened its system in February 2020, with the creation of an anti-harassment, multidisciplinary and independent unit.
It is aimed at staff employed directly by MEPs, in Paris and in the constituencies, those of political groups, some 1,300 Assembly staff and the 577 MEPs themselves.
Stéphane Trompille (LREM) at the National Assembly in Paris, June 26, 2018 Thomas SAMSON AFP / Archives
The unit's mission is to listen to and advise people, and if necessary accompany them in procedures.
It can also send all useful information to the ethics officer, who can take legal action himself.
Only 24 people used the cell between February and December 2021. Most reported "a situation of suffering at work or a situation which would be similar to moral harassment", details the ethics specialist Christophe Pallez in its activity report published on Tuesday.
In addition, two also reported "facts that could constitute sexist acts or sexual harassment".
Three "reports" were made to the human resources department, concerning staff from the Assembly's services.
Nine cases were sent to the ethics officer, concerning employees of deputies - including five reports targeting one and the same person in question.
For the first time, the ethics officer then sent a case to justice for alleged acts of sexual harassment.
The former Gironde deputy Benoit Simian is targeted, whom one of his collaborators accuses of having forced her to sleep in the same room as him, and of having multiplied the intimate messages at the end of 2020-beginning of 2021, according to Mediapart.
The Bordeaux prosecutor's office has just opened an investigation.
Benoît Simian (LREM) at the National Assembly in Paris, December 19, 2018 Philippe LOPEZ AFP / Archives
The ethics officer, himself a former senior official of the Assembly, recognizes that this long journey and also "the strong expectation of the victims" lead "to accusations of inertia of the institution".
Duty to set an example
He suggested explicitly providing for disciplinary sanctions for harassment - from a call to order to temporary exclusion.
This is to certify "the will" of the Assembly "not to tolerate such behavior" - without prejudging a court decision.
The office of the institution followed Monday evening its recommendations and modified the code of ethics of the deputies: the harassment constitutes well “a violation of the duty of exemplarity”.
The ethics officer will be able to more easily seize on this basis the office of the Assembly, which will pronounce the appropriate sanction.
To prevent these actions, Mr. Pallez also calls for training: the staff of the Assembly were able to benefit from it at the end of 2021, and the deputies should, according to him, follow workshops on a compulsory basis at the start of the next legislature.
With in particular the hashtag #MeTooPolitique, the initiators at the end of last November of a call to "remove the perpetrators of sexual and sexist violence" in the political world, have an eye on the nominations or re-investitures by the parties for the legislative elections of June.
© 2022 AFP