Eight texts are on the program for the parliamentary initiative day of La France insoumise (LFI) at the National Assembly, scheduled for Thursday November 28. But the deputies have very little chance of going beyond the first text of this “niche”. And for good reason: this is the long-awaited bill to repeal the pension reform. This is the first time that such a bill has arrived in session without having been emptied of its substance in committee, despite several attempts since the adoption of the reform in April 2023. The deputies could theoretically succeed in repealing it at first reading since the left and the National Rally have announced that they will vote for the text. Theoretically, because nearly a thousand amendments have already been tabled.
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The “niches”, these days where a parliamentary group has control of the agenda, function like “Cinderella days”: they start at 9 a.m. and, whatever happens, at midnight, everything stops. It doesn't matter that we are in the middle of examining a text, where five minutes before the vote, the spell is broken. Can a vote take place before midnight on Thursday? This is the whole question, because the promoters of the 2023 reform, the presidential coalition and The Republicans (LR), do not plan to sit idly by. “We are going to table a certain number of amendments… They want to keep the debate alive, we are going to keep the debate alive”, assures the LR deputy for Manche Philippe Gosselin. In short: dilute the debates and obstruct in order to avoid a vote before midnight.
Ironically, at the time of the examination of the pension reform, in February 2023, it was the left, and ultimately only LFI, which practiced obstruction. Already, at the time, to avoid at all costs a vote and the legitimization by the National Assembly of a very unpopular reform. This is also how LFI justified its obstruction at the time: “There is a difference between obstructing to respect popular sovereignty and, on the contrary, to prevent the expression of popular sovereignty”explained, Tuesday morning, the president of the LFI group to the Assembly, Mathilde Panot. The strategy nevertheless sparked controversy, with the former majority not having harsh enough words to denounce this attitude. Even if parliamentary obstruction is nothing new and has been practiced, over time, by almost all camps in the opposition.
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