July 22, 2020 / By mobanmarket
MPs in France have warned that Emmanuel Macron’s gruelling reform agenda is driving them to the brink of burnout, with France’s parliamentary speaker telling the president: “We need our weekends back.”
A renowned workaholic, Mr Macron reputedly only sleeps four hours per night and his government is equally intense, pushing through parliament a string of reforms from changes to the labour code to immigration.
But even the hardiest of parliamentarians are now complaining that the tempo has become too frenetic to handle, and is bad for democracy.
In the land of the 35-hour working week, MPs have been working 80-hour weeks for the past month and the National Assembly has been debating for the past 17 days straight, including weekends.
“People are exhausted,” complained Jean-Luc Mélenchon, firebrand leader of the far-Left Unbowed France party. "The workload is colossal,” moaned André Chassaigne of the Communists.
“I’ll spare you the sob story, but this is no way to legislate,” said Christian Jacob, head of the opposition Republicans party.
A controversial debate on asylum on immigration was followed by an equally intense one on farming and food, with more in the pipeline, often with thousands of amendments.
“There comes a point where it’s just not on anymore,” warned François de Rugy, parliamentary speaker who is in Mr Macron’s Republic on the Move party. “This is not the right way of working for an assembly and at the end of the day it doesn’t result in good laws.”
For a start, he told Europe 1 radio: “I will propose that we no longer work Saturdays and Sundays. It’s high time we changed our way of working in the National Assembly.”
The massive workload is by no means confined to parliament.
According to BFM TV, four advisers and 14 cabinet secretaries have left the office of prime minister Edouard Philippe since last May.
One told the channel that advisors often worked until “three or four in the morning”.
“We’ve had former prime ministers who were difficult, but it wasn’t this bad. The atmosphere wasn’t this unhealthy," said the anonymous advisor.
Stress levels are so high that the prime minister has brought in a well-being coach to relax overworked staff with essential oils.
Mr Edouard promised no let-up.
“We work a lot. I see to that. The pressure is considerable; notably because the expectations of the French are considerable,” he told BFM TV.
However, there was a silver lining for MPs, said Mr Castaner: unlike last year, they won’t have to work through August, France’s sacrosanct holiday month.
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