While the street is still contesting the bill, the government has won, unsurprisingly, the pension battle in the Senate. The upper house, with a majority on the right, adopted the reform on Saturday by 195 votes against 112 after ten days of debate.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne did not hide her satisfaction after this first real legislative success. “An important step has been taken”, she welcomed, convinced that “there is a majority” in Parliament to adopt the reform. The text has indeed not completed its legislative journey, a crucial vote probably awaiting it Thursday in the National Assembly.
The Senate therefore completed its race against the clock on Saturday evening with a day ahead of the deadline set for midnight on Sunday. “Finally, here we are! “, exclaimed the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau who asked the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt to send a message to Emmanuel Macron: “We are voting for the reform, but we are not voting (for) him”. On the left, PS Senator Monique Lubin, castigated a “brutal” reform.
In February, the avalanche of amendments tabled by Nupes had prevented the Assembly from deciding on this reform, without even managing to examine article 7 providing for the decline in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
Bruno Retailleau’s boost
In the Senate, where LFI does not have elected officials, the debates were however less peaceful than expected. In order to accelerate, Olivier Dussopt had drawn the weapon of Article 44.3 of the Constitution on Friday, allowing a single vote on the entire text without putting to the vote the amendments to which the government is unfavorable.
Examination of the bill has therefore been able to move forward at a brisk pace, especially after the boost driven by Bruno Retailleau, who on Saturday afternoon gave up presenting his emblematic amendment, which called for the abolition of the special regimes benefiting certain categories of workers, including for current employees.
A weaker mobilization on Saturday in the street
While the Senate was concluding the review of the reform, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets during a seventh day of action, which mobilized significantly less than the previous six. The Ministry of the Interior counted 368,000 demonstrators in France, less than February 16, the day that has mobilized the least since the start of the protest on January 19.
After the Senate, it is now the turn of the joint committee (CMP) to enter the scene. It will bring together 7 deputies, 7 senators, and as many alternates on Wednesday in a closed room at the Palais-Bourbon with the aim of reaching a compromise on the measures that the Assembly and the Senate have not voted on in the same terms. The presidential camp and the right seem to have control over this CMP, with respectively 5 and 4 holders each. A new day of events is planned in parallel with the meeting.
In the best of scenarios for the executive, if deputies and senators reach an agreement within this commission, the revised text will have to be validated Thursday from 9 a.m. in the Senate, then at 3 p.m. in the Assembly. This last vote, if it is positive, will be worth definitive adoption by the Parliament.