This Sunday, September 24, the Senate renews almost half of its seats (170 seats out of 348). The opportunity to discover behind the scenes of this chamber whose members are elected by indirect universal suffrage.
Every time he is asked if the senators’ retirement plan should not join common law, Gérard Larcher opens his eyes, which he then rolls to the sky. The Senate President does not seem to fully understand the question. His response comes in two parts. First, the senators’ regime obeys the “same parameters as those applicable to the general regime”, and if certain parameters still have to change, those of the Senate will follow suit. Then, says Larcher, the Senate does not benefit from any exorbitant privilege: by virtue of the sacrosanct separation of powers, the executive cannot set the amount of senators’ retirement, unless it has a means of pressure. And then, to top it all off, the President of the Senate puts forward the strong argument: the senators’ retirement plan is in good shape, why reform it?
In fact, the Senate’s autonomous fund, created in 1905, accumulated approximately 1.4 billion assets in 2021, of which less than half could be mobilized immediately. It is supplemented by senators as well as a small allocation from the State (8 million euros, compared to 67 million for deputies). Since the last pension reform, the senators have made a gesture: in addition to raising the starting age from 62 to 64, they have agreed to reduce the amount of their pension by around 20%. It now averages 1,800 euros net after a single 6-year mandate. MPs receive on average 700 euros…
This is undoubtedly another necessity imposed by the separation of powers: the Senate does pretty much what it wants with its money, and does not intend to be accountable to anyone. “Transparency is not his strong suit! » regrets René Dosière, president of the Public Ethics Observatory. The upper house publishes its budget each year (336 million euros in 2022), but we should not be too demanding. In particular, it is impossible to know the salary paid to civil servants.
René Dosière therefore proceeds by analogy with the National Assembly (an estimate corroborated by a senior Senate official): an administrator, responsible for participating in the proper functioning of the institution, receives between 5,000 and 8,000 euros per month, a director around 10,000 and a general secretary around 20,000 euros. For around ten years, the presidency of the Senate has cleaned up the benefits granted to civil servants, in order to calm down anti-parliamentarianism. The various bonuses have been integrated into the remuneration. From now on, a civil servant no longer receives a bonus each time the session exceeds 7 p.m., then midnight, then 3 a.m., whether the person is present in the chamber or in bed. Thanks to this system, civil servants rounded off their salaries by a few thousand euros more each year. The zero-interest loan, intended for the purchase of real estate, has also been eliminated. Drivers, gardeners and secretaries, on the other hand, continue to receive senior executive salaries: between 6,000 and 8,000 euros in mid-career!
We know the Luxembourg Gardens, ranked the most beautiful garden in Europe in 2022 by the British site HouseFresh. It is less known that its 23 hectares are the property of the Senate. The national or municipal police cannot enter without the authorization of the senatorial authorities, who have their own security. More than sixty gardeners maintain it. Total cost of maintaining this jewel, to which must be added the greenhouses created in 1838 and the numerous beehives: 12 million euros per year.
The senator is a pampered man – or woman. His seat is shaped to his appearance, and he can benefit from reimbursement for two pairs of glasses per year. He also has unlimited train tickets (first class) and six round trips by plane per year to the destination of his choice. A doctor and a hairdresser are at his disposal, as is a gym. Another rather astonishing advantage: he can, every Friday afternoon, buy wines, champagnes and spirits chosen from the president’s cellar, obviously very well stocked, at cost price. The high-ranking members of the Senate, like the senators who are members of the office, have, however, lost some privileges over the years. They no longer have the right, in particular, to a private apartment in the Palace of Versailles. Michel Charasse liked to take advantage of it: when he hunted in Rambouillet, the socialist senator invited his friends to a few feasts in the castle of the Sun King…
“I am sending you, my dear Feisthamel, a grenadier […] who has some knowledge of an underground passage which goes from Luxembourg to Arcueil. » The missive, signed La Fayette, dates from 1830. It mentions a network of underground passages built under the Luxembourg Palace, which are still present. But there is more surprising. In 1937, a bunker was built under the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace. It is built on two floors and can accommodate around 300 people. It will be used by the Luftwaffe officers who, during the Occupation, set up their HQ on rue de Vaugirard. They store a whole bunch of objects under the Luxembourg Palace, including a bust of Hitler and a Nazi flag measuring two by three meters which were unearthed by a journalist from Le Monde in 2019. The affair caused a lot of noise because the presidency of the Both the Senate and the administration seem to be unaware of its existence. “We don’t keep a bust of Hitler in the Senate, that’s insane! » said Senator Roger Karoutchi astonished… We do not know what has become of the famous bust since then.