The right warns the government of the prospect of a suspension of pension reform, a condition of the socialists to avoid censorship. “Suspending it without an alternative scenario amounts to jumping into the void without a parachute,” warns Laurent Wauquiez in particular two days before François Bayrou’s general policy declaration.
“Working the beam”, as former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe recommended in 2017, is a very difficult art. It is all the more so for his distant successor to Matignon, François Bayrou, deprived of a majority in the National Assembly and forced to find compromises on both sides to avoid censorship.
By seeking the good graces of the left as the presentation of the draft budgets and its general policy declaration, scheduled for Tuesday, approaches, the latter takes the risk of allying itself with the support of part of the “common base” who supported his predecessor, Michel Barnier. Proof of this is the message sent by the Les Républicains party this weekend.
Two men came out of the woods: Gérard Larcher, LR president of the Senate and Laurent Wauquiez, boss of the party's deputies. Both are putting pressure on at a time when the left, excluding the LFI, is negotiating step by step with the government, particularly on pension reform, for which the socialists are demanding a “suspension”, their condition for “non-censorship”.
“Jump into the void without a parachute”
“Neither suspension nor repeal” of this law, enjoins the first in an interview published by Le Parisien this Saturday, warning that “participation” in the government “does not mean renunciation”. “If we repealed the pension reform, the cost would be 3.4 billion euros in 2025, and almost 16 billion in 2032,” he assures, based on estimates from Retirement Insurance.
The president of the PS group in the Senate, Patrick Kanner, estimated that freezing the reform for six months would cost “between 2 and 3 billion euros”, which could be drawn from the reserve fund for pensions.
On Sunday, Laurent Wauquiez, whose support for the previous reform was never obvious – some of his relatives had voted for censorship on this text – sang the same song as Gérard Larcher, also in Le Parisien.
“I have always said that this reform could be improved, but not if it means creating even more deficits. Suspending it without an alternative scenario is like jumping into the void without a parachute. It will be without the Republican Right!” he warns.
And the former boss of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region joked: “What bothers me is not discussing with the left, it's ceding everything to them. I have the feeling that the priority of the government is to negotiate life insurance with the Socialist Party, whatever the consequences for the country. What the PS is asking for is irresponsible.”
A good warning, even if Laurent Wauquiez says he is not “one of those who threaten a motion of censure”, denouncing “the artisans of chaos”.
“Stop catching a cold when Gérard Larcher coughs”
Determined to weigh in, the right takes advantage of these interviews to reiterate its priorities. Gérard Larcher expects “that we continue to reduce the deficit and public spending with concrete actions, particularly on state agencies and simplification”.
Laurent Wauquiez also calls for “creating a single social allowance with working hours in return” and for tackling the “residence permit for care”, which “is very expensive”, according to him.
Everyone pushes their pawns. Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the PS, was on BFMTV this Sunday. The right? In the legislative elections, “they came last, they are not now going to lecture everyone,” he replied. While minimizing the influence of LR, which only has 47 deputies: “This supposes that at some point we all stop catching colds when Gérard Larcher coughs.”
The ball is in François Bayrou's court, while the PS still believes that “the score is not there”. Ministers Éric Lombard (Economy), Amélie de Montchalin (Public Accounts) and Catherine Vautrin (Health and Labor), were received on Saturday evening in Matignon to present the summary of their work, after a week of intense discussion in Bercy with the opposition politicians.
This Monday, the Prime Minister must notably receive at 5:30 p.m. the presidents of the two houses of Parliament, Gérard Larcher and Yaël Braun-Pivet. Will he make a significant gesture toward the left during his general policy statement the next day? With what consequences in the “common base”? The answer is only a matter of hours.
