LIVE – “We will do everything to ensure that the pension reform is repealed”, assures Fabien Roussel on TF1

The National Rally wants to submit a text at the end of October aimed at repealing the pension reform. Also a campaign promise of the New Popular Front, the communist leader Fabien Roussel implies that his deputies could add their votes to it. But not everyone within the NFP agrees.

Watch the interview with the national secretary of the Communist Party, Saturday on TF1’s 1 p.m. news.

On October 31, the National Rally will defend a text aimed at repealing the pension reform. Also a campaign promise of the New Popular Front, will the left-wing alliance vote for it? “We have been so mobilized against this pension reform (…) that we will do everything to ensure that this pension reform is repealed,” he replied on TF1. “We will do everything and so we will see when it arrives in the chamber,” “we will talk about it and we will see at that time,” he repeated afterwards, while no discussion between the four allies has yet taken place on this subject. But a few voices have already been raised to say that it was out of the question for the left to support an RN text.

Fabien Roussel, leader of the Communist Party, will meet Prime Minister Michel Barnier next Tuesday. To tell him what? “I will go and see him to listen to him, to find out what his intentions are, and to demand the repeal of the pension reform at 64, wage increases and an increase in resources for public services,” he declared on the 1pm news on TF1.

Would his group in the National Assembly vote a priori for a motion of censure against the new head of government from the ranks of LR? “We have never been in favor of defending chaos and adding chaos to chaos. We want things to move forward for the French people first,” he replied, adding: “I’m going there without illusions, we will have a motion of censure up our sleeve and we will see what he will say in his general policy speech,” but if he compromises on the priorities of the NFP “we will discuss.”

The leader of the National Rally deputies Marine Le Pen hoped on Saturday that the new “term of office will be as short as possible”, calling for a new dissolution. “We find ourselves in a system where the one who has the fewest votes is responsible for forming a government”, she pointed out, in reference to the arrival of Michel Barnier from the ranks of LR, at Matignon. “This cannot hold”, she continued in front of the RN parliamentarians gathered in the Assembly for their return, calling for “new legislative elections” when the constitutional deadline of one year allows it. The President of the Republic informed her that he did not wish to dissolve the Assembly again.

Before the announcement of Michel Barnier’s government and the arrival of a possible seventh Minister for Overseas Territories in nearly 30 months, elected officials from these territories, often undermined by unemployment and inflation, are calling for a minister who is up to the task. “Mr. Prime Minister, in the past, you have had the opportunity to say that ‘overseas territories, this beating heart of France’ deserves special attention,” the PS-affiliated MP for Guadeloupe, Elie Califer, calls out in a letter dated September 9. In it, he warns of the “singular urgency” of the island overseas territories, which are often isolated and plagued by a questioning of France’s supervision.

This “beating heart”, which is home to “80% of biodiversity” and “makes our country the second largest maritime power in the world”, “deserves our attention” especially since overseas difficulties “continue to grow”, from economic recovery to “insufficient health infrastructure” which are all subjects “underestimated in recent years”, according to Elie Califer.

From Paris, where the National Rally is bringing together its parliamentarians, Jordan Bardella welcomed his party’s “historic” results in the European and legislative elections. “Unlike our adversaries, no leniency, no form of tolerance, no right to make mistakes will be granted to us. We must therefore be irreproachable,” he warned. “We must remain a constructive opposition whose only compass is the interest of the country and the interest of the French people.”

He strongly criticized the attitude of his opponents while “the French have made us the leading party in terms of the number of deputies but also in terms of the number of votes”. “The maneuvers aimed at systematically blocking the National Rally and its voters will never constitute a viable political horizon for France and for the French. Pushing aside millions of French people in a form of authorized discrimination is not healthy, it constitutes a serious attack on the democratic health of the country”, estimated the party president.

What is the programme of the country’s politicians this Saturday? Michel Barnier is still expected to focus on forming his government, announced for next week. Emmanuel Macron will be at the “Parade of Champions” on the Champs-Elysées at the end of the day. The National Rally is in Paris for its parliamentary days, and the New Popular Front is in Brétigny-sur-Orge for the Fête de l’Humanité.