She was a lawyer, then an associative activist before entering politics five years ago.
Tuesday June 28, Yaël Braun-Pivet, 51, was elected this Tuesday June 18 president of the National Assembly, the 4th most important position in the state.
The deputy is the first woman to occupy this precious seat, also called “the perch”.
Officiating alongside the President of the Republic for the Renaissance party – formerly La République En Marche – Yaël Braun-Pivet arrived in the political sphere in 2017, during the first election of Emmanuel Macron.
At the time, she was a deputy for the 5th constituency of Yvelines and president of the National Assembly's Law Commission.
It was in May 2022, within the government of Elisabeth Borne, that this fifty-year-old was appointed Minister of Overseas Territories, before resigning to be a candidate for the presidency of the hemicycle.
Determined to want to maintain a certain uniqueness within the National Assembly, she declared to the opposition forces, on the set of the program Les 4 Vérités, on France 2, after the legislative elections: "We will have to work together”
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From a very young age, Yaël Braun-Pivet has heard political conversations at the table, or through the history of her ancestors, Slavic immigrants, Polish Jews and German Jews.
And in particular that of his grandparents, who had to flee Poland to escape the Nazis and take refuge in Nancy in the 1930s. His grandfather was notably a medalist in the Resistance after the war.
With her mother and her brother, the young girl moves a lot, following the professional transfers of her father, an executive in an advertising company.
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Between court of law and volunteering
After obtaining her baccalaureate, Yaël Braun-Pivet studied law at the University of Nanterre.
She joined the Paris bar as a criminal lawyer, then that of Hauts-de-Seine until 2003. She practiced this profession for seven years, before leaving everything to devote herself to her family, and supporting her husband, Vianney Pivet, senior manager at L'Oréal, expatriate in Taiwan, Japan and Portugal.
Far from her native country, she devotes herself to the education of her five children.
Back in France, Yaël Braun-Pivet chose to embark on volunteer missions rather than return to the courts.
She became responsible for access to rights and justice within the Restos du Cœur, offering free legal advice, even going so far as to create her own reception center in Sartrouville.
Determination and commitment
It was during the 2017 presidential elections that Yaël Braun-Pivet entered the political sphere and joined the cohort of members of civil society who committed themselves to Emmanuel Macron.
Member of Parliament, she was elected in June 2017 to chair the Law Commission.
If the opposition sees a certain "amateurism" in her, reports the media
Challenges
, her collaborators salute her determination, her commitments and her desire to address public policies by going directly to the field.
During her mandate, she focused in particular on the issue of prisons and initiated the visit of around thirty deputies to several prison establishments in France, in order to closely study the French prison situation.
Within the hemicycle, Yaël Braun-Pivet voices strong opinions.
It is committed, for example, to Olivier Falorni's bill authorizing euthanasia.
But rejects, in 2018, the inclusion of the right to abortion in the preamble of the Constitution.
At the time, she declared on the set of BFMTV: “The rights of women with regard to contraception and abortion are today extremely well assured in our country.
I do not believe that the inscription of these rights in the constitution, on the one hand is necessary, on the other hand is useful.
In my opinion, there is no need to raise fears about what is happening in other countries to believe that these rights are threatened in ours.
After the announcement of the questioning of the right to abortion in the United States, Friday, June 24, she spoke again on the subject by posting on her Twitter account a message of support for the activists who defended the right to dispose of one's own body: “For all those who fought for the right to abortion, for the freedom of all women, we have a duty never to let our guard down.
The protection of fundamental rights requires our constant vigilance”.
The Benalla affair, an
annus horribilis
The year 2018 will be his "annus horribilis", according to an article published in Liberation on June 28, 2022. Yaël Braun-Pivet indeed chairs the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Benalla affair - this former head of mission, Emmanuel Macron's travel coordinator, is accused of having usurped the function of police officer.
A flammable subject, which ends up touching her: the deputy is strongly criticized by the opposition, who accuse her of supposed impartiality.
She also receives many abusive messages on social networks, and chooses to file a complaint for sexist insults and anti-Semitic threats.
That same year, she had already submitted her candidacy to reach the presidency of the National Assembly, before withdrawing it shortly afterwards.
Four years have passed and the deputy has had time to prepare for this objective, which she considered too ambitious the first time, reports
Le Figaro
.
Tuesday, June 28 during her speech after her election, she declared that the Assembly today has “the face of France” and that “the French enjoin us to work together, to debate rather than fight”.
Perched on the perch, Yaël Braun-Pivet faces a major challenge, determined to find a certain majority within these disparities.