Departure drink and "breakfasts" with "external speakers"….
Parliamentary collaborators and union sources deplored Thursday certain deviations from the health rules in the Assembly, the deputies however ensuring to respect the barrier gestures.
An employee points to an "evening" Tuesday in the offices with the leader of LR deputies Damien Abad and some colleagues.
"They are reckless", criticizes this source, while "any meeting of a festive or convivial nature is strictly prohibited", according to the rule at the Palais Bourbon in the face of Covid-19.
It was a "moment of conviviality" for the departure of an employee, in a "large room", with "distance", answers Damien Abad.
"We must not infantilize everyone or do a witch hunt," said the elected representative of Ain.
External guests, despite the ban
“We are careful.
There are necessarily exchanges that exist in the Assembly, ”continues the right-wing official.
Anonymously, several collaborators also criticize working “breakfasts” organized at the Questure by LREM elected officials with “outside speakers”, when the rule in force indicates a “ban” on “outside guests” for “internal meetings”. ".
Florian Bachelier, first quaestor (LREM) in charge of the management of the institution, specifies that guests can come to the quaestor for working meetings.
Last Tuesday, at the initiative of LREM deputies Gaël Le Bohec and Bénédicte Pételle, such a “breakfast” was held on the separatism bill with intellectuals and theologians.
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"There were three meetings" and "we had coffee outside, the room was very large," says Bénédicte Pételle.
"It's like in all committees when there is a speaker".
"We are holding firm on over-exemplarity"
A trade union source considers "regrettable that the deputies allow themselves a certain number of freedoms while restaurant owners are forced to close shop".
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But in the Assembly, "it's stricter than in any organization, we stand firm on over-exemplarity," insists Mr. Bachelier.
"Lunches and working dinners are authorized for all French people, in all companies in our country" and also "at the Assembly", underlined to the press the boss of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner.
He was questioned about working lunches and dinners at the Elysee Palace at the start of the week, after Emmanuel Macron tested positive for the Covid on Thursday.
The Assembly had been a hotbed of epidemics in the spring.
It tightened its rules in October, in addition to the half-gauge already established in committee and in the hemicycle.