In the National Assembly,
She sticks to the executive like Captain Haddock’s band-aid. Two months after its adoption by the use of 49.3, the pension reform continues to cause controversy in the National Assembly. A bill aimed at repealing the postponement of the retirement age to 64, tabled by the group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-Mer et Territoires (LIOT), must indeed be debated in the Hemicycle on June 8, during his parliamentary niche. A last hope for opponents of the text and a major political risk for the majority. However, the elected Macronists have drawn a new element of the Constitution: article 40, which would allow the presidential camp to avoid a vote and to definitively turn the page on this difficult sequence.
Article 40, kezaco?
During a press conference organized this Tuesday noon at the Assembly, the leaders of the presidential majority therefore brandished the Constitution to torpedo the Liot text even before its arrival in session. “Let’s stop the lies and the fables […] There is no ambiguity about the inadmissibility of this bill, which is contrary to article 40 of the Constitution”, launches Aurore Bergé, the president of the Renaissance group, alongside her counterparts Laurent Marcangeli (Horizons) and Jean-Paul Mattei (Modem). This article specifies that “proposals and amendments formulated by members of Parliament are not admissible when their adoption would result in either a reduction in public resources, or the creation or aggravation of a public charge”.
Clearly, deputies and senators do not have the ability to degrade public finances. This is what the macronists criticize the text of their colleagues. By returning to the legal starting age of 64 to 62, “it creates an additional burden and not the least, for a text at a total cost of 22 billion euros. Beyond the grotesque, we therefore defend our institutions, ”argues the elected representative of Yvelines. “This text will never go to the end. We are telling canards to the French”, abounds Laurent Marcangeli, denouncing a “little political coup” and “a populist attitude”.
What’s going to happen ?
The elected representatives of the Liot group swept aside these accusations on Tuesday, recalling that their text provided for a major social conference to find new financing measures. “To want to prevent the Assembly from deciding on this text would constitute an unacceptable authoritarian drift”, warned the group of independent elected representatives, convinced of obtaining a majority on June 8.
This new episode in the battle over pensions already promises twists and turns, especially since article 40 can be activated at any time during the legislative procedure. In recent hours in the Assembly, no one agreed on who would make the final decision. In the event of disputes, the office of the Assembly, its highest authority, could well have the last word. The latter had already ruled in favor of Liot when the text was tabled, in accordance with the practice of not being too restrictive for parliamentary initiatives.
Is the majority afraid of the vote?
In the opposition, it is claimed that the majority finds all the good reasons to avoid a vote. “As they say in westerns, they have the livers. Imagine the symbolic significance of a first vote of the Assembly which would rule out the decision imposed by the force of a 49.3”, assures Pierre Dharréville, communist deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône. “These are only the first skirmishes, there will be others to prevent a vote on this text again”, philosopher Charles de Courson, Liot deputy for the Marne.
In private, in the majority, we recognize racking our brains for several weeks to thwart the arrival of this little bomb in the Assembly, two days after a new call for mobilization by the unions. Some defend the idea of parliamentary obstruction, others prefer to demystify the issue around the ballot. “It’s a good political move, a marketing move, but we have to make it understood that it won’t change anything, blows a Renaissance executive. The text will never be applied”. Because the LR majority of the Senate has made it known that it will not vote for this bill. It could therefore return to the Assembly according to the traditional parliamentary shuttle. And continue to poison the beginning of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.