“I am open to a pluralist reflection to evaluate and reassess if necessary the ban on the accumulation of mandates, with the aim of bringing national and European elected officials closer to citizens“declared the Prime Minister before the Assizes of the departments of France in Angers, to the applause of elected officials.
“It’s a bit of a shame that deputies can’t be mayors more often. It’s a bit of a shame that local elected officials cannot go directly to Paris themselves to raise a large number of concerns or issues.”then developed Mr. Barnier on France Bleu.
“Ten years later, it is normal to evaluate a law (…) And if we realize that this law presents more disadvantages than advantages, as I think is the case in this link between citizens and elected officials, we could review it on certain points”he added.
A 2014 law, adopted under François Hollande and applied since 2017, prohibits being both a national (or European) parliamentarian and holder of a local executive mandate.
Elected officials say they are “disconnected” from the field
This ban is regularly called into question by part of the political class, mainly on the right, on the grounds that national and European elected officials would thus be “disconnected” of the field, due to lack of local responsibilities.
In the spring of 2024, the deputies rejected a bill from the Horizons deputies which again authorized deputies and senators to exercise the functions of deputy mayor, vice-president of a department or even a region.
Mr. Barnier also asked departmental advisors for their “actualized feeling” on the proposal to replace departmental and regional advisors with a single territorial advisor in order to better coordinate the work between the two assemblies.
However, he recognized that this idea, invented by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010, suppressed by François Hollande then taken up by Eric Woerth in his report on decentralization in the spring, “has been contested by many departments”.
