Legislative 2022 © Graphic Studion FMM

In the middle of the presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron had launched in 2017 an appeal to citizens wishing to become deputies.

The candidacies had been numerous and had resulted in a presidential majority of 308 deputies elected under the label La République en Marche.

Among them, a few personalities from the left and the right, but above all a majority of novice deputies who are determined, on arriving at the National Assembly, to renew political practices.

Five years later, what conclusions can we draw from their action?

France 24 interviewed the sociologist Étienne Ollion, director of research at the CNRS and author of the book "The candidates" (Puf, 2021).

According to him, "changing faces is not enough if you don't change the rules of the game".

France 24: You investigated the La République en Marche deputies elected in 2017 and in particular those from civil society.

What general conclusions can we draw from their action

?

Etienne Ollion:

The balance sheet is quite clear.

Although most of the novice MPs were particularly active, investing themselves fully in their role, they were however quickly relegated to the background in terms of capacity for action.

Within La République en Marche, the deputies who have emerged are those who already had experience in politics, whether as an elected representative or as a collaborator.

This is an important element to take into account because Emmanuel Macron's promise, in 2017, was to change the practices of politics by changing the faces.

However, despite a few unsuccessful attempts to change the functioning of the National Assembly, this discourse has disappeared.

Changing faces is not enough if we do not change the rules of the game. In the end, the novice deputies found themselves constrained.

>>

Legislative 2017: "On renewal, En Marche! has done nothing new"

These deputies were mocked in their early days and often referred to as "Playmobil deputies" by the opposition.

But Emmanuel Macron defended them by telling them "be proud to be amateurs"... Was he right

?

It's true, the novices were mocked and often unfairly, because their mistakes carried little or no consequence.

When someone stutters because he is not used to speaking in the Hemicycle, or someone else hesitates about parliamentary procedure, it is not a big deal.

And besides, the criticisms which related to the blunders of these newcomers to the Bourbon palace quickly stopped.

If we want politics to be made by ordinary people, we should not expect everything to be perfect.

As for the "Playmobil" deputies, it is in fact only the 2017-2022 version of the expression "deputies boots" that we could hear before to qualify the deputies of the majority voting systematically as indicated to them by the government.

There is nothing very new.

However, it is not certain that the novice deputies could have been "proud to be amateurs" because their inexperience penalized them.

When they arrived at the National Assembly, they had neither the legislative know-how nor the well-placed acquaintances – namely colleagues in the Assembly or in the ministries likely to give them advice or inform them.

The result is that those who knew what to do in the National Assembly in the first days and weeks, because they were already in politics before 2017, found themselves with little competition and were quickly able to impose within the LREM group.

I am thinking in particular of the former young collaborators of the Socialist Party such as Sacha Houlié, Pierre Person, Pacôme Rupin or Aurélien Taché.

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Have some novices been able to pull out of the game despite everything?

Yes, this is particularly the case for deputies like Jean-Baptiste Moreau or Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, who even ended up in government.

This is also the case of Yaël Braun-Pivet, who remained at the head of the law commission for five years and who played a central role in the National Assembly, even if it could sometimes rock.

Her case is interesting: if she was able to find a place for herself, it is in particular thanks to the many supports from which she benefited because of her position.

She had a whole team at her disposal and was extremely well surrounded with three administrators and the means of the parliamentary group, in addition to her own collaborators.

It is also a case that illustrates well that with only two or three collaborators in normal times, French deputies do not have the means to work properly.

For the 2022 legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron did not renew the experience of novice candidates.

We also see that deputies choose not to stand again.

What analysis can we draw from this

?

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron transformed a structural weakness into a communication force.

Today, he no longer needs it.

About 70 LREM deputies chose not to stand for a second term or did not receive the party's nomination.

And these free places have been allocated to people already established in political life or in the structures of current power.

Among the starters, some deputies were disappointed by the political and ideological orientations taken by Emmanuel Macron.

Others were able to see the MP's lack of impact and the weakness of Parliament.

The criticisms were numerous.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, who is back, wrote a very negative report in December 2021 on the role of parliamentarians, believing that it was not possible to continue like this.

MP Annie Chapelier, who is not standing for re-election, has published a vitriolic book entitled "A Fake Parliament".

During these five years, the novice deputies have ultimately served as revealers of what politics is today and its impact on the personal lives of elected officials.

It's an environment where we no longer belong, where there is a constant dissociation between the public image and the private image and where violence is constant, whether internal with a lot of low blows between colleagues , or external with angry French people who insult you, threaten you or, in some cases, go so far as to attack you physically.

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