France’s new slate of lower-house lawmakers sit in the National Assembly for the first time on Tuesday to open the 16th Legislature. An astonishing surge of far-right and leftist winners in elections this month not only deprived centre-right Emmanuel Macron of an absolute legislative majority, it also provided some of the new chamber’s most unusual profiles. Some stand as symbolic outliers while others illustrate genuine trends. FRANCE 24 takes a look at some of the most noteworthy novices.
The new guard: Tematai Le Gayic and Louis Boyard, 21
Louis Boyard (Nupes/LFI) est le deuxième député le plus jeune de l’histoire de la Ve République. © Julien de Rosa
Two of the new lawmakers taking their seats this week weren’t old enough to vote during France’s previous legislative elections in 2017. Tematai Le Gayic, elected in French Polynesia, and Louis Boyard, elected in suburban Paris, were both born in 2000. Taking office aged 21, they will be the youngest deputies to serve in the National Assembly, beating the previous record held by far-right scion Marion Maréchal, Marine Le Pen’s niece, who was 22 when she was elected for the National Front in 2012.
Both young men are part of the leftist wave in the new chamber. Le Gayic, who ran as a Polynesian independence candidate, and Boyard for the far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed” or LFI) are backed by the pan-leftist NUPES coalition.
Among the 118 of 577 deputies under 40, the pair are the figureheads of a National Assembly ever so slightly younger to begin this legislature (average age 48.5 compared to 48.8 in 2017), confirming a youthful trend after 2012’s batch averaged a relatively grizzled 54.6 years of age.
Boyard’s LFI leads the charge, with the far-left party boasting the youngest slate of lawmakers at 41.2 years old, according to a FRANCE 24 tally, just under the French population’s average age of 42.2. The far-right National Rally is the party with the third-youngest lawmakers (after the Greens), averaging 45.6 years of age.
Researcher Bruno Cautrès, who co-authored a review on the subject for Le Monde, attributes National Rally legislators’ relative youthfulness to the party’s thinness on the ground as the party leapt to 89 deputies elected this month compared to just eight in 2017. “This party does not have a reservoir of local elected executives,” wrote Cautrès, a specialist at Sciences Po’s CEVIPOF research centre. “More often than not, the RN’s leaders designated local party activists as candidates without truly believing in their chances at winning election.”
Young candidates aren’t necessarily chosen for youth’s sake but for what they bring to the table. “I think LFI and the RN try more to find candidates who can break institutional codes when they speak. And for that, who’s better placed than young people?” said Armel Le Coz, who co-founded a group called Démocratie Ouverte (“Open Democracy”) to promote institutional renewal. “Take Louis Boyard. Originally, he was an influencer speaking to his community. He breaks the codes to show another kind of politics is possible.”
Anecdotally, this legislature also sees its first influx of Kevins. The Irish first name counts as a significant age marker in France, where it enjoyed short-lived but wild popularity in the early 1990s (credit Kevin Costner dancing with wolves). Kévin Pfeffer, 32, and Kévin Mauvieux, both elected under the far-right National Rally banner, are the chamber’s first-ever Kevins. Meanwhile, the lower house bids goodbye to its Bernards, a moniker associated in France with the senior set; no Bernard of the eight elected in 2017 will sit in the legislature this time.
The doyen: José Gonzalez, 79
José Gonzalez, doyen de l’Assemblée nationale, présidera mardi la première séance de la XVIe législature. C’est une immense fierté pour notre mouvement ! pic.twitter.com/j2agPB48YR
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) June 23, 2022
The far-right National Rally, meanwhile, can also boast of having the oldest of the 577 lawmakers elected to the chamber in June’s elections. José Gonzalez, 79, handily beat a 32-year-old NUPES candidate to win his Bouches-du-Rhône district on June 19.
