Debates on the pension reform bill ended Friday evening at midnight, without the deputies having been able to vote on the text, or even examine article 7 on the postponement of the legal age to 64 years.
After a break in parliamentary work for a week, the senators will have two weeks to debate, which should lead until March 12 at midnight. They will be seized in committee from February 28, then in the hemicycle on March 2 of the bill modified by the few amendments voted by the Assembly with the favorable opinion of the government.
An adoption (or not) on March 16
The senatorial right clearly supports the reform. But the left is determined to play the show in the upper house. Its members will be able to rely on social mobilization, with the day of March 7 in sight, on which the inter-union is betting to “bring France to a halt”.
Despite this pressure from opponents, which could get tougher, the reform project can then on paper continue to make its way through Parliament. At the beginning of the week of March 13, 7 deputies and 7 senators will meet to try to reach an agreement on the main measures of the reform – this is the usual principle of joint joint commissions, to bring points of view closer together.
If there is agreement, the text will still have to be adopted definitively by the Assembly and the Senate. The date has already been set at the Palais-Bourbon: it will be March 16, if necessary.
The National Assembly will have the last word
If there is disagreement between deputies and senators, the reform project will have to shuttle again between the two chambers, and the National Assembly will have the last word.
An agreement in the joint committee is not guaranteed on this pension reform. It is special because it will not have been the subject of a global vote in the Assembly at first reading. “There is a real risk of failure”, considers an LR deputy, while the right is however in a position of strength in this body. “Discussions will take place next door”, predicts a framework of the presidential majority.
The parliamentary shuttle that would ensue would also be locked into a tight schedule. The Parliament must indeed decide in total in fifty days, that is to say by March 26 at midnight, failing which the provisions of the reform can be implemented by ordinance by the government, provides for the Constitution. It never happened.
Ultimate government weapon: the 49.3
Many other pitfalls may arise between now and then for the presidential majority and the executive. The most unpleasant of surprises would be that there is an agreement in the mixed committee, but that the text is then rejected by one or the other chamber. “In principle, this last vote is a formality”, notes a parliamentary source, however nothing should be excluded because of the relative majority in the Assembly of Macronists. They need the votes of the LR deputies, still divided.
“I think we can get there but it will be played with a few voices”, slips a Renaissance executive. If the Assembly rejected the reform, then “might as well ask the French for confidence again”, in other words Emmanuel Macron could dissolve.
Ultimate weapon for the government to avoid this pitfall: draw article 49.3 of the Constitution to have the text adopted without a vote. On such a flagship reform, nobody wants it in the presidential camp, for fear of being weakened. A heavyweight of the majority observes that “the government is doing everything” to avoid it, by concessions to the right.