A the Assembly nationale,
It was to be a more than symbolic day. A day of victory for all opponents of Emmanuel Macron's pension reform. Thursday, as part of its parliamentary niche, the rebellious group will propose the repeal of the text carried by Elisabeth Borne and adopted in the pain of a 49.3 in March 2023.
Like the vote in committee, the contribution of the votes of the National Rally should have made it possible to repeal the reform without too much difficulty. This was without taking into account the strategy of the government coalition which, by dint of parliamentary obstruction, intends to avoid the organization of a vote in the hemicycle.
“This sabotage is grotesque”
At a press conference Tuesday morning, the leader of the rebels, Mathilde Panot, has a dark look. The day before, the four groups of the “common base” (Renaissance, LR, Modem, Horizons) tabled nearly a thousand amendments to the text repealing the pension reform. Their objective: to make the debates last Thursday until midnight, the end of the LFI niche, in order to avoid a lost vote in advance. “This is a very serious attack on the constitutional rights of parliamentary groups. We are going to fight against this obstruction and this coup,” sighs the boss of the LFI deputies.
The leaders of the New Popular Front then parade in front of journalists. Everyone is annoyed by the attitude of the central block. “This sabotage organized by Macronist deputies is unworthy. It is as crude as it is grotesque. It’s pathetic…” says Benjamin Lucas, spokesperson for the environmental group. Béatrice Bellay, of the Socialist Party, castigates “the thug methods of the central bloc”. The PS elected official reads a few amendments to illustrate her point: “'reforming pensions: why bother when you can win votes in the blink of an eye', this is the type of amendment to which we have the right. The French will be happy to see that some people allow themselves to make these jokes at such an important moment.”
“They are experts! »
On the side of the ex-majority, we shrug our shoulders in the face of these criticisms of parliamentary obstruction. “They speak with knowledge of the facts, they are experts! », mocks Laurent Marcangeli. The president of the Horizons group in the Assembly alludes to the tons of amendments tabled by the left – and mainly by the rebels – during the debates on pension reform in 2023. “We are not going to play with commas, semicolons, adjectives and verbs,” he adds.
Except that several elected officials on the left have pointed out in recent hours on social networks numerous amendments to change titles and other well-known tricks to prolong debates without going to the heart of the subject. The former Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau, now at the head of the MoDem deputies, does not hide it at all: “The strategy is that this text does not succeed. I use all the means of democracy. And I have no problem saying it, because it would be a tragedy if the text were voted on. Does it bother Madame Panot? Of which act. »
The person concerned tried to show the difference between the parliamentary obstruction defended by her camp in 2023 and the strategy defended by the Macronists this Tuesday. “At the time, we echoed the popular sovereignty which was expressed in the streets against the reform,” says Mathilde Panot. This doesn't change much from Thursday's situation. At midnight, the curtain will fall on the hemicycle regardless of the state of discussions on the text. And if no vote has taken place, we will have to wait for the next parliamentary session to be able to resume the debates.
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