Bring back the guillotine

GOVERNMENT and opposition MPs have clashed over plans to curtail debate in the National Assembly.

The government has accused the Socialist Party of posing an excessive number of practically identical amendments to delay legislation.

Socialist veteran Laurent Fabius accused PM François Fillon of ignoring the rights of parliament. He said the right to pose amendments “allowed welcome debate” on subjects such as nationalisation.

The government has accused the Socialists of hijacking their parliamentary programme.

Debate of public broadcasting reforms took several weeks after the opposition tabled 800 amendments – throwing out the remainder of the government’s legislative timetable for 2008.

PM François Fillon said that “no one could argue that we should not rationalise the debates” and that MPs should agree how long debates should last before they begin.

The president of the UMP in the National Assembly Jean-François Copé, said that the Socialist Party had put forward 4,800 amendments to government legislation “150 of which were virtually identical to the nearest comma, put forwards 22 times.”

The right of amendment for MPs is a constitutional guarantee, allowing an MP five minutes to defend his proposal.

The president of the parliamentary commission in charge of the bill and the minister in charge of the bill are allowed to follow up before a vote is taken on the amendment by the whole assembly.

The process can severely delay legislation.

The record was set by left-wing MPs when they posed 137,000 amendments in the autumn of 2006 on a bill examining the fusion of Suez-GDF. During the debate, ten identical amendments were defended by ten different MPs.

Photo: AFP