It was long but it happened: the government was beaten on one of the measures of its pension reform, on the senior index, included in article 2. But before 11:30 p.m. and the time of the vote, the day of the National Assembly had already been well filled. 20 minutes spent the day at the Palais Bourbon and summarizes it for you.
Article 2 challenged
This is not a key article of the pension reform. It is “only” the senior index, supposed, according to the government, to encourage companies to hire or not to lay off people over 55 years of age. Except that the device is not binding on the merits. The fact remains that seeing the government defeated on part of its major project is a political event. Tuesday evening it was even largely beaten: 256 against, 203 for. This time, the Republicans completely let go of the government. When the left sees an empty shell in the senior index, the right sees it as too great a constraint for companies.
What weaken the coalition with LR for the adoption of the reform? “It won’t be the same vote,” reassures Renaissance MP Mathieu Lefèvre. Only, even without the votes against LR deputies, the article would have been rejected. If the Nupes was almost full, it lacked fifty votes on the side of the majority. Not enough to overturn the vote “but it’s still significant”, believes Éric Coquerel, LFI deputy, who sees there “an obvious victory” for the opposition. “It’s like that, it’s not a drama”, loose, annoyed, the deputy MoDem Erwan Balanant, at the end of the session.
500 million to help out
Government questions are rarely the occasion for big government announcements. So inevitably we were quite surprised when, to a question from the LR Véronique Louwagie, Élisabeth Borne, herself, announced a gesture on the long careers – workhorse of Aurélien Pradié and the LR slingers. The Prime Minister announced that employees eligible for the long career scheme, i.e. those who started working before the age of 21, would not have to contribute over the age of 43 to retire, as long as they will have reached the required early departure age. In the initial project, some employees had to contribute for 44 years.
Problem: Tuesday evening, on LCI, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, explained that 500 million euros were missing to finance this measure. Behind the scenes, the government had the worst difficulty in explaining what this measure changed compared to Élisabeth Borne’s announcements two weeks ago in the Sunday newspaper. In short, one wonders if the announcement on Tuesday afternoon was not a bit improvised. Improvised in order to return the vote of the LR on article 2? According to our information, the government knew from midday that it was going to be defeated. Wasted effort.
Right obstruction
Monday evening, the Nupes decided to withdraw its remaining amendments – more than 1,000 – on article 2 of the pension reform en bloc. The idea: to accelerate a little the movement of the debates. “And what did we get?” A tunnel of right-wing amendments! “, ironically the deputy LFI Hadrien Clouet. Indeed, we did not see the expected acceleration. We spent a lot of time on LR amendments aimed at changing the expression “older employees” to “senior employees”…
We have also seen the majority widely spread out their speeches, which are usually rare, multiply the demands for a public vote when it is more a demand from the opposition usually… It’s technical, but they are good methods known obstructionists to slow down proceedings. Olivier Marleix, president of the LR group, defends the right of amendment of his people. At Nupes, journalists are insisted on pointing out that the obstruction can come from the right and from the majority. “The obstruction today is 100% on your side! “, François Ruffin even got carried away in the hemicycle on Tuesday evening, when we were vegetating on the – key – question of the application of the senior index to professional football clubs.
Assembly Assassins
The day after the session incident caused by the deputy LFI Aurélien Saintoul, who accused Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labour, of being a “murderer”, the event was still in everyone’s mind. The MoDem, member of the majority, “sad” and “worried” returned to it at length, all in seriousness: “We crossed the impassable yesterday, notably assured the deputy of Loir-et-Cher, Philippe Vigier. This word will remain etched in the history of Parliament. ” Really ? In the past ten years alone, two deputies have insulted one of their colleague “assassins”, as noted by journalist Pierre Januel.
A UMP during the debate on marriage for all in 2013 and, in 2019, a deputy… MoDem. In both cases, no sanction was imposed. Amazed that he was reminded of this precedent in the ranks of the group, Erwan Balanant nevertheless attempted a parade: “No, but it was in the report! They put everything in the report, it was not at all in a structured intervention! “The deputy from Finistère invites us to put this “murderer” there “in its context”. Nuance!