Thirty-nine days after the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale, 11 days after the second round of snap elections that saw the presidential camp lose, Emmanuel Macron is still president, Gabriel Attal is still prime minister, and Yaël Braun-Pivet is still president of France's lower house of parliament.

On Thursday, July 18, Braun-Pivet, an MP in Macron's Renaissance party, was re-elected president of the Assemblée Nationale in the third round, with 220 votes. Her nearest rival was Communist MP André Chassaigne, representing the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) left-wing alliance, who got 207 votes. This despite the fact that the presidential coalition obtained less than 15% in the European elections, 20% in the first round of early parliamentary elections and lost more than 80 seats in the second.

It was as if this new political order didn't exist, as Braun-Pivet walked toward the perchoir, or perch − the name given to the desk behind which the president of the Assemblée sits − on Thursday, just before 9pm. On her way, she embraced the outgoing interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, then the secretary general of the Assemblée Nationale, Damien Chamussy. Only MPs in the centrist bloc, the Droite républicaine (DR) group and part of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) applauded the new president. NFP MPs remained silent in their seats.

Visibly moved, Braun-Pivet improvised a speech to break the obvious discomfort linked to the announcement of her re-election. She called for parliament to bring "new solutions" to the French people, using "new methods."

"It was the same speech as two years ago!" railed Boris Vallaud, president of the Socialist group, shortly afterward.

The "new methods" referred to on Thursday echo the "new chapter" that the Assemblée Nationale president called for two years ago. "We have to get along, we have to cooperate, we have to be able to seek compromise, we have to be able to dialogue, listen to each other and move forward," she said on Thursday evening. When she took office in 2022, she said that "the French people [were] telling them to work together, to debate, rather than to fight," adding, "This dialogue will be the foundation on which we can build consensus and compromise."

Three political blocs

The period between these two speeches was marked by a chaotic legislature. It was a similar atmosphere at the inaugural session of the Assemblée, which is usually a conventional affair. During Braun-Pivet's speech, while she was congratulating the French on the high turnout in the legislative elections, radical-left MP Sophia Chikirou (La France Insoumise, LFI) shouted at her, "The French didn't vote for you!"

You have 66.63% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.