April 14, 2023 will long be remembered by the movement against pension reform. While the text must pass the technical control of the Constitutional Council, the demonstrators intend to put pressure, to make their arguments heard, to the foot of the Palais-Royal if necessary. Accustomed to quiet corridors and muffled living rooms, the Sages find themselves under the spotlight like never before.
Because their decision is not necessarily self-evident. In the media, several constitutionalists point to various legislative “jumpers”, the choice of an unusual budgetary vehicle for social reform, the use of several articles of the Constitution (47.1, 49.3 and 44.3) either to avoid a vote or to limit discussion. Nothing that outrageously violates the Constitution, but validating such a stack would be risky case law, favoring the executive.
eight to one
Except that there is not necessarily a need for a doctorate in law to sit on the Constitutional Council. Two of the nine members are former ministers of the government of Edouard Philippe, and Alain Juppé, appointed by the macronist Richard Ferrand, himself carried an unpopular pension reform in 1995. President of this small assembly, Laurent Fabius is the one of two survivors of the François Hollande era.
According to the newspaper Point, who retraced part of the exchanges between the guardians of the Constitution thanks to several sources, the former socialist minister found himself well isolated in a discussion played out in advance. The eight other Sages would have, in turn, expressed their approval of the text, seeing no attack on the Constitution, provided that the “riders” were removed, such as the “senior index”. Laurent Fabius, last to speak, wishes to censor the text.
“He was alone in his position”, confirms one of the Sages to the Point, and there was no vote. His position, while the case was played, surprised. “It was the most important decision of his mandate and he lost it, it is inconsistent”, considers a macronist The information would nevertheless have gone back to the ears of Emmanuel Macron, who would have seen it “a deliberate aggression” , according to a close friend of the president. The enmity between the two men is old, traces the Pointand Laurent Fabius will leave the Constitutional Council at the end of his mandate, at the beginning of 2025.