During the first round of the election for the president of the National Assembly, several deputies refused to shake the hand of Flavien Termet, youngest member of the National Assembly and deputy of the National Rally (RN) of the Ardennes. This republican tradition was shunned by several parliamentarians, mainly from the New Popular Front (NFP).
Among those who refused this courtesy are LFI deputies Louis Boyard, Antoine Léaument, Manuel Bompard, Mathilde Panot, Clémence Guetté, Aymeric Caron and Raphaël Arnault. Louis Boyard justified his gesture on X (formerly Twitter) by declaring: “We don't shake hands with the extreme right. Never. » Antoine Léaument, for his part, explained on BFMTV: “I do not shake hands with the National Rally deputies outside the Assembly, I do not see why I would do it inside. »
LFI MP François Piquemal chose a more original approach by miming “rock-paper-scissors” when greeting Flavien Termet, commenting on »
Other left-wing deputies, such as the first secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure, the president of the Socialist deputies Boris Vallaud, and the Ecologists de Paris deputy Sandrine Rousseau, also refused to shake Termet's hand. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Macronist MP and former minister, also declined this gesture.
Some RN deputies expressed their incomprehension at these refusals, notably Laure Lavalette, deputy of Var, who described these acts as a "return of the thugs" to X, also criticizing the support of Gabriel Attal to this attitude.
Flavien Termet, in an interview with the Union, expressed his intention to shake the hand of each deputy to ease tensions, while expecting refusals.
This series of refusals takes place in a context of strong polarization in the National Assembly, where the blocs of the NFP, the presidential camp, and the RN clash, with right-wing groups and independents playing a role of arbiter. .
