President Macron’s novice MPs have been told to stop whingeing after saying that parliament was destroying their family lives while depriving them of fine food and fast cars, reports The Times.
Richard Ferrand, leader of the ruling La République en Marche (LREM) parliamentary party, denounced their “useless babble” and told MPs to keep their “qualms” to themselves.
“When you have public responsibilities you don’t talk about yourself,” he said.
Mr Ferrand spoke out with discontent spreading among the 281 LREM MPs elected to parliament for the first time after Mr Macron’s pledge to renew French politics. Many had no previous experience of public life and appear taken aback by the late-night sittings.
Bruno Bonnell, a video games producer before becoming an MP this year, said: “There are going to be a lot of ultimatums at Christmas of the sort: ‘If you go back [to parliament] I’ll leave you’. There is a conflict between family life and politics as it is today.”
François-Michel Lambert, who was an ecology party MP before joining Mr Macron, said: “We are heading for an unprecedented number of divorces.”
Read more of this report from The Times (subscription required).
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