The attempt by the left and the RN to repeal the much-maligned 2023 pension reform came up against obstruction on Thursday from the presidential camp in the National Assembly, while the prospect of censorship of the government next week occupies everyone. the spirits.
Parenthesis in the current budgetary storm: La France insoumise had the annual parliamentary day reserved for its texts on Thursday. With a flagship proposal, aiming to repeal the 2023 pension reform, by reducing the legal retirement age from 64 to 62 years.
The text, supported by the left and the RN – therefore theoretically by a majority of deputies – however had little chance of being put to the vote before the midnight deadline, marking the end of the LFI “niche”. And this is due to hundreds of amendments tabled by the right and the center in order to slow down parliamentary work.
Between one hundred and two hundred people gathered at 7:00 p.m. at Les Invalides at the call of LFI to protest against this strategy, in the presence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“We are in a moment of historic political crisis (…) For the first time in our history, we have a completely new phenomenon, government obstruction (…) They are doing everything to prevent us from being able to vote for a repeal law”, denounced the leader of LFI, calling for Prime Minister Michel Barnier and the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron to leave their positions.
At the end of the afternoon, the supporters of repeal won a first symbolic victory: they rejected by 241 votes to 100 the amendments by which their colleagues from the government “base” wanted to empty the text of its substance.
This “stinging defeat for the presidential camp” proves that “there is a majority in the Assembly and in the country for repeal,” LFI MP Clémence Guetté said on X.
The battle is, however, far from won for the left and the RN. Around 10 p.m., there remained more than 600 amendments to be examined, leaving the left with little hope of reaching a vote.
“If you prevent us from voting today, it will only be one more reason to censor you,” warned the leader of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot to those of the government “base”.
In an overheated hemicycle, the debates were interspersed with multiple points of order and suspensions of sessions to restore calm.
– “Clown amendments” –
“We will not participate in this comedy and your clown amendments!”, fumed Hadrien Clouet (LFI), faced with the multiple proposals from elected officials from the right and the center aimed solely at modifying the title of the law. “The circus in Parliament is you who make it!”, replied Richard Ramos (Modem).
For the Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, the “few hundred amendments” tabled are nothing compared to the 19,000 tabled by the left at the time of the examination of the reform, in 2023. Basically, being responsible supposes not “unraveling what had made it possible to balance the accounts”, he insisted.
“To repeal this reform would be to compromise the future of our retirement system,” added her colleague in charge of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, criticizing an “irresponsible, senseless and unfair” approach.
For Macronist MP Annie Vidal, the authors of the numerous amendments above all want to express “deep concern, because this proposed law generates considerable expenditure which is not financed and which will obviously lead our pension system to bankruptcy”.
The repeal proposal, approved without incident last week in committee, returns not only to the 2023 reform but also to that carried out in 2013 by PS Minister Marisol Touraine – who had increased the contribution period. A stone in the garden of the Socialist Party, which had nevertheless affirmed that it would vote for the bill whatever happened.
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