The new president of Les Républicains Eric Ciotti warned on Monday that he would set “conditions” to vote for the pension reform that Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne must present on Thursday. “If this reform makes it possible to save the system, we will contribute to it through our amendments to the National Assembly, to the Senate”, declared, on RTL, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, who has “always defended an increase in the duration of contribution or retirement age”.
“If it goes in this direction, we will naturally be concerned about the general interest, but it is too early today to tell you what our vote will be”, he added, noting that we had to wait for discover the content of the text. “There are conditions, there are markers that we will set: save the pension system, rehabilitate small pensions at the level of the minimum wage, take into account the hardship, also see what is happening on the special regimes”, has detailed the one who was elected president of LR on Sunday, with 53.7% of the vote.
Already departures
A few days before the Christmas holidays, the government must unveil a highly contested pension reform, which its opponents are preparing to block by all means, from the streets to Parliament. The announcements of the Prime Minister are run in advance, marked by the presidential promise to push back the legal age from 62 to 64 or even 65 years. This last terminal holds the rope.
As soon as the election of Eric Ciotti as head of the party was proclaimed, several LR figures slammed the door like the mayor of Metz, François Grosdidier, or the boss of the Haute-Garonne federation, Laurence Arribagé. “Those who leave, it’s a jolt. I will not retain them, ”reacted the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes. “What I want, (…) is to bring back those who have been disappointed, that we have disappointed. »
“There will never be an agreement with anyone,” he also assured, when asked about a possible alliance with Eric Zemmour. “We are a party which has a very strong history, which wrote the greatest pages of the Fifth Republic, and we are going to win in independence and in clarity on a line to the right”, he added, renewing his wish to see Laurent Wauquiez carry the torch of LR to the presidential election of 2027.