In the end, she only remained Minister of Overseas for a month.

This Tuesday, after the vote of all the deputies, Yaël Braun-Pivet will become the president of the National Assembly.

Re-elected MP for Yvelines on June 19, she took advantage of a window of opportunity to stand last Wednesday for an internal primary for the head of the lower house of Parliament.

By winning over another ex-chairman of the LREM commission, Roland Lescure, she succeeds Richard Ferrand and becomes the first woman in France to take up this position.

Lawyer by profession and mother of a large family, Yaël Braun-Pivet, 51, arrived in politics in 2017. That year, after defeating the right-wing pillar Jacques Myard in the Yvelines, this novice in politics had been chosen by the majority for the Law Commission, breaking the tradition of appointing an experienced person.

Mother, lawyer and volunteer

The chosen one from Yvelines then becomes an essential figure at the Palais Bourbon.

"I held the bar in the face of crises, from terrorism to the pandemic", many laws relating to it being the responsibility of his commission, she assures.

And to praise its "new method of working, made of listening" and "co-construction" including with the oppositions which it has in fact been able to make itself appreciated, since that date.

A former criminal lawyer, Yaël Braun-Pivet had put her "vocation" on hold to follow her husband, an executive at L'Oréal, seven years in Taiwan and Japan, and raise their five children.

Back, she will invest in the Restos du Coeur, where she saw "a lot of people in very complicated situations", creating free consultations with lawyers and a reception center in the Yvelines.

Tainted by the Benalla affair

His membership of En Marche – after having “always voted PS” – is an “extension”: “in action without remaining on postures”, in line with the “vision” and “pragmatism” of Emmanuel Macron.

His first steps earned him a trial “in amateurism” from the opposition but also from elected representatives of the majority.

She then left her mark with collective field visits, in particular to around thirty penitentiary establishments.

Jail was his priority.

One of his proposals was retained in the penitentiary plan: open centers geared towards reintegration for the purposes of sentencing, as in northern Europe.

In the summer of 2018, it's a cold shower: the commission of inquiry into the former collaborator of President Alexandre Benalla, of which she is co-rapporteur, explodes after the withdrawal of the opposition.

Several deputies accuse Yaël Braun-Pivet of “protecting” the Élysée, the Insoumis Alexis Corbière qualifying it as “Benalla of the National Assembly”.

Target of anti-Semitic threats and sexist insults on social networks, Yaël Braun-Pivet will say a few months later that his “position was untenable from the start”.

"It's not my thing to be boring and authoritarian"

If her human qualities – “warm”, “not twisted” – are welcomed, she is sometimes criticized for being too “nice”.

"It's not my thing to be boring and authoritarian," replies Yaël Braun-Pivet.

This descendant of "Slavic, Polish Jewish and German Jewish immigration, with grandparents who entered France on tourist visas" in the 1930s, prefers internal debates to public arm wrestling.

Stubborn, Yaël Braun-Pivet made a strong commitment last year in favor of Olivier Falorni's bill authorizing euthanasia.

It also sought to move forward in the renovation of democratic life.

Company

Yaël Braun-Pivet, Minister of Overseas France, is committed to a memorial to the victims of slavery

Policy

Sexism in the National Assembly: Yaël Braun-Pivet denounces the behavior of certain deputies

  • National Assembly

  • Women

  • Parliament

  • Yael Braun-Pivet

  • Government

  • Portrait