It is not just the overmobilized deputies in the hemicycle: in the shadow of the elected officials, the parliamentary collaborators chain the hours on the pension reform, often with passion, but in the expectation of greater recognition.

Public meeting in the evening with deputy and minister, session the next morning to fight against the opposition, Amélie, collaborator of an elected Renaissance, whose first name has been changed, multiplies the “phew days” since the start of the exam very heckled from the bill.

“But I’m not going to complain, it’s exciting. And my deputy is not the type to take me for a maid by asking me things for his personal life”, she assures, slipping that d others don’t have so many scruples.

Among the Socialists, a dozen employees worked on the 1,400 amendments tabled on behalf of the 31 deputies of the group: writing, recording in dedicated software…

All the “collabs” are now busy providing their deputies with substantive arguments and “ammunition” against the presidential camp. They also feed social networks to defend the party’s positions.

The battle for pensions is “a much higher pace, all the more for the socialist group which also had a parliamentary niche (a day dedicated to its legislative proposals) last Thursday”, testifies Astrid Ribardière, collaborator of the deputy Mickaël Bouloux.

According to her, the debate is “more tense” than during the aborted pension reform of 2020, “because of the relative majority” Macronist and “the presence of an RN group” which changes the tone between the oppositions.

Mathilde Viot, now self-employed, was then an adviser to the parliamentary group of La France insoumise. 23,000 amendments had been tabled by LFI at the time.

“We slept three hours a night and we started again. It was quite joyful, quite collective, unlike other times when everyone is a little more in their corner,” she recalls.

– “Le badge H”-

Certain profiles – general secretaries of groups, advisers – have access to the hemicycle, at the foot of the bays, to slip in some suggestions or recall the voting instructions. They have the sesame to get in, the “H badge” as a semicircle. “It’s style” to have it, laughs a collaborator.

The others follow the session frantically on video and exchange on the networks. With a “Renaissance retreats” loop that comes alive on Telegram to beat the recall of the troops and share elements of language, says Amélie.

Each political group also has its own collaborator styles.

“At LFI, they are activists. More than us,” says a Renaissance. “Right now, when I call Coquerel’s collab, is it often on demonstration?”.

As for Claire Jacquin, “director of cabinet” of the Insoumis Antoine Léaument, her deputy paid tribute to her during the preparation of a demonstration: “There she is stuck on a nacelle, but she does not lose her cool, and that’s strong”, he greeted, tweeting a photo of the interested party perched on a machine to hang a sign on a lamp post.

Little hands, communication officers, advisers or even confidants: the status of the 2,000 parliamentary collaborators – a third under 30 – is an often sensitive subject in the Assembly.

“The methods of recovering the days, it’s haphazard luck, each group does a little as it wants”, recalls Mathilde Viot.

Quite a number of employees “have an hourly contract with an overtime system which is hardly applied”, laments Astrid Ribardière, union representative at Unsa.

A new negotiation is currently starting with the association of employers’ deputies to talk about contracts and salaries, which vary greatly according to the boss and the profiles, with a median around 3,000 euros gross per month.

In recent years, questions of moral harassment and even sexual harassment of employees have also shaken the institution.

“Moral harassment has declined a little, even if some deputies remain problematic,” said Astrid Ribardière. “But we are vigilant in a period like this, everyone is stressed, including the deputies”.

Since 2019, the Assembly’s ethics officer can be contacted by any presumed victim of sexist acts, sexual assault or acts constituting sexual or moral harassment within the institution.

02/12/2023 09:53:08 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP