Thursday, the Macronists and the government could have a very bad day. As part of its parliamentary niche, La France insoumise will submit to the vote a bill to repeal the 2023 pension reform, the one which recorded the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. This text, carried by Élisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister at the time, ended up being adopted on the wire, after an unbreathable debate lasting several months. However, here he is again threatened. If the Socialist Party will add its votes to those of the rebels, the left will especially benefit from the support of the National Rally. “Our 125 deputies will vote to repeal the pension reform,” confirmed this Monday morning, Edwige Diaz, the deputy for Gironde and number two in Jordan Bardella's party. We have made a commitment to repeal this reform. We will therefore take the opportunity to do so. »
If the NFP and the RN fill up with their respective votes, they could inflict a scathing setback on the central bloc. Certainly, if this is the case, the text, as part of the parliamentary shuttle, will then go to the Senate, where the majority right should challenge it. But it will be to better return to the National Assembly at second reading, where it would have every chance of being adopted…
“Alliance of opposites”
However, if this first vote, Thursday, appears so dangerous for Michel Barnier, it is because it goes far beyond just pension reform. Indeed, such a vote bringing together the NFP and the RN would materialize what the Prime Minister already denounces as “the alliance of opposites”. And, in doing so, would further lend credence to the prospect of seeing it fall on the finance bill.
“When we say we can censor the government, it’s not a bluff”
Clearly, if the left and the RN vote together to repeal the pension reform, nothing prevents us from considering that they could join their votes again on December 20, on a very probable motion of censure, against the project of finance law. Which provides for a budgetary effort of 60 billion euros to restore the public accounts. Emergency braking that neither the left nor the RN want. From this angle, Thursday's vote has everything of a dress rehearsal, not to say a “motion of censure” before its time.
“The interest of the French”
“We can see things like this,” this PS executive observed this Monday morning. Same reading for RN Edwige Diaz: “The facts can be made to happen again. »
If Michel Barnier should not fail, in the coming days, to further attack this “alliance of opposites”, on the left, as in the RN, we refute any agreement. “We never vote on RN texts, we don't care about him, but about the interests of the French,” the PS defends. “The interest of the French” is also this compass that the RN claims: “There are no negotiations or coordination with the left,” emphasizes Edwige Diaz. Voting a motion of censure does not mean that we support the political project of the NFP. When we say we can censor the government, it's not a bluff. It's a bad budget and our hand will never shake to defend the French. »
