Government spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye. – Alfonso Jimenez / REX / SIPA
A ballot without pressure. Ministers reporting to municipal elections who are not elected may stay at the
government, spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said Thursday.
She recalled on Public Sénat that the executive “encourages those who wish to be elected local because it is a very good function in the service of our fellow citizens, but the fact of having been beaten in a local election does not presage your ministerial destiny”, she said.
Going to the municipal elections for a minister, “this is not a test! “
“The principle enacted is that the Fifth Republic is not an Anglo-Saxon republic, as in the United Kingdom where the ministers of the majority come from parliament” and where “mid terms determine whether or not the government must stay in place. ” “These are uncorrelated things and the minister’s legitimacy does not come from the fact that he is elected as a member of parliament or a local elected representative,” she added.
Going to the municipal elections for a minister, “this is not a test! “Defended the Minister of Territorial Cohesion Jacqueline Gourault on Sud Radio, stressing that” local anchoring is always very important “.
“The custom was the opposite”, denounces Mélenchon
The leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted by arguing that until now “the custom was the opposite: we started from the idea that a minister was certainly not elected by anyone but that he benefits from the vote of confidence and that if universal suffrage does not want it, we go home to show that we have heard the message ”.
But “now, in the new world, whatever happens, we stay in place and we obey the chief above all, even at the risk of inhumanity and disrespect for democracy,” he criticized on France 2.
In 2017, during the legislative elections, with a national issue, the Elysée Palace wanted the candidate ministers to resign from their posts if they were not elected.
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