The vote was acquired by 233 votes “for” and 99 “against”. The Senate with a right-wing majority voted on Saturday evening the extinction of several special regimes, including those of the RATP and energy companies, provided for in article 1 of the pension reform, only for future hires. It is expected that agents recruited from September 2023 will be affiliated to the common law scheme for old-age insurance. The employees concerned who are already in office retain their benefits. This is the “grandfather clause”.
“It’s the Spanish Inn”
The left has appropriated the floor all day against this first very sensitive measure of the government project which provides for the gradual extinction of five special regimes (electricity and gas industries, RATP, Banque de France, clerks and employees of notaries, members of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council).
“When you read this article, it’s a bit of a Spanish inn”, mocked the socialist Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie, for whom “what interests the government is the RATP and the electricians and gas workers” . Several left-wing senators said with a smile that the reform would “complicate the task of Mr. Castex” in view of the 2024 Olympics.
The communist Eliane Assassi denounced “a sea serpent which feeds on resentment and resentment”, the ecologist Guillaume Gontard “a dangerous game on the divisions that we are trying to raise between the French”. “You are going to create chaos in the country”, affirmed the communist Pierre Laurent.
Strikes and mobilization of March 7
Energy companies began a renewable strike on Friday against the reform project, with cuts in electricity production in several nuclear power plants, a prelude to the day of “shutdown” of France scheduled for March 7. The inter-union RATP called for a renewable strike from this date.
In the hemicycle of the Senate, the debate on the subject is not closed since must still be examined in the rest of the text, after article 7, an amendment of the boss of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau against the “clause of the grand- father “. Unlike the government, the Vendée senator wants the phasing out of special schemes to apply to employees already in office.
“My amendment proposes convergence (between the regimes, editor’s note) until 2040, there is nothing brutal while for all French people, from September 1, the reform will gradually begin to apply”, insists he. The Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt reiterated Saturday in the hemicycle his opposition to this amendment which could be rejected, for lack of support from the centrists.