Emmanuel Macron has proposed the nomination of the right-wing Senator François-Noël Buffet to the position of Defender of Rights. A curious choice for this conservative profile who notably voted against extending marriage to gay couples and against extending PMA to lesbian couples.
“The President of the Republic, on the proposal of the Prime Minister, intends to nominate Mr. François-Noël Buffet as Defender of Rights.” Confirming the circulating rumor, the Élysée announced in a press release issued this Tuesday, July 7, the name proposed by Emmanuel Macron to succeed Claire Hédon, whose six-year non-renewable term has ended.
To take effect, the appointment of Defender of Rights must still be examined by the Law committees of the National Assembly and the Senate. But the choice of this senator from Les Républicains (LR), who notably stood out with votes against LGBT rights, has sparked widespread opposition from some sixty LGBT+ associations and human rights organizations such as Aides, Amnesty International, Inter-LGBT, and the Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH). Initiated by a petition demanding that the post be “embodied by a personality whose positions and commitments are fully aligned with the principles that the institution defends”, these groups reacted negatively to the Élysée’s announcement: “François-Noël Buffet’s career is marked by several positions contrary to fundamental rights and the values that the Defender of Rights is charged with promoting.”
The right-wing votes of François-Noël Buffet
As an independent authority, the Defender of Rights has the mission of helping people get their rights respected by backing them with its authority. Yet it would be fair to say that the Rhône senator, now 62, has rarely stood out with forward-looking votes on rights… In 2013, he opposed the extension of marriage to homosexual couples. “What I fear is that we will soon be confronted with questions of medically assisted procreation, then of surrogacy, which will inevitably be raised in the name of equality. That is why I will vote against this text”, he declared before the Senate during the debates on the Taubira law. The following year, during the 2014 municipal elections, he signed the La Manif pour tous (LMPT) charter proclaiming “to defend the model of the traditional family“. More recently, in 2021, as president of the Senate’s Law Committee, François-Noël Buffet also opposed the opening of medically assisted procreation (PMA) to women couples.
The Jacques Toubon precedent
Judging the profile of Senator Buffet as “incompatible with the values of the institution”, the associations opposing him “call on the President of the Republic to renounce this nomination” and urge lawmakers “to exercise their democratic oversight power and to oppose this nomination.” A challenge politically echoed within the left, from La France insoumise (LFI) to Raphaël Glucksmann’s Place publique. “Mr. Buffet will need to be very clear about his determination to defend rights that he has often fought for with determination”, comments Aurélien Rousseau, the Place publique deputy for Yvelines, who adds “this appointment has all the hallmarks of an oxymoron”. Calling on lawmakers to “reject this nomination”, MEP Manon Aubry (LFI) laments: “In Macronland, one can be named Defender of Rights while being LGBT-phobic, xenophobic, sexist and supporting liberticidal positions.”
The history of the Defender of Rights, a post created in 2011 by Nicolas Sarkozy, shows de facto that the progressiveness of past votes is not a criterion for appointment. In 2014, the choice of Jacques Toubon, a former minister under Alain Juppé and Édouard Balladur, also sparked strong opposition, the appointee having voted against the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, against the decriminalization of homosexuality the following year, then against the Pacs in 1999. Launched by environmentalists, a petition against his nomination had also gathered more than 90,000 signatures. But through his sharp critique of the security laws adopted after the 2015 attacks, as well as his universalist defense of LGBT rights, the former Keeper of the Seals had surprised everyone during his term: “How Jacques Toubon became the icon of the left and NGOs”, France Culture analyzed at the time, while Marianne noted “a metamorphosis, from the RPR to Pierre Bourdieu”. If the Defender of Rights post opens the eyes of reactionary elected officials, why not even propose the nomination of Bruno Retailleau?
