From this Monday, all the deputies will be able to give their opinion on the pension reform. The project indeed arrives in the hemicycle of the National Assembly for two weeks at high risk. The pressure continues to mount for the government on this highly contested text, while opponents are organizing two new days of mobilization this week.
The kick-off of the debates will be given at 4 p.m., in a Palais-Bourbon which promises to be overcrowded for this battle around the postponement of the legal age of departure from 62 to 64, a flagship reform of Emmanuel’s second five-year term. Macron.
On the bench of the government, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt will not be alone, but surrounded by colleagues from Bercy for this budgetary text. While this key minister is weakened by suspicions of “favoritism” in the awarding of a public contract when he was mayor of Annonay, Elisabeth Borne and the presidential majority united around him during the weekend.
A concession on long careers
With the approach of two days of action, Tuesday and Saturday at the call of the inter-union, the head of government hammered that with this legal age at 64, “we are asking for a collective effort from the French” but ” our objective is to ensure the future of our pay-as-you-go pension system”. In a last minute concession, Elisabeth Borne however finally announced that people who started working between the ages of 20 and 21 will be able to retire at 63, by extending the long career system – a request from LR deputies, whose voices are crucial.
Will this gesture be enough in the eyes of the right? Not for Aurélien Pradié in particular, who points to a “deception” and asks to go further for those who started contributing early. On the union side either, we are not convinced: it is a “patch” which “is not the response” expected “to the massive mobilization observed”, denounced Laurent Berger, the boss of the CFDT.
This Monday, the LFI deputies will immediately defend a request for the rejection of the entire reform, “brutal” and “unfair”. Then the RN group, also against the 64-year-olds, will bring its request for a referendum on the reform.
The deputies will then tackle the some 20,000 amendments tabled on the bill, including 13,000 by LFI. On this point, Elisabeth Borne says she hopes “that the oppositions will withdraw some of their amendments and that we can have a real debate, project against project”, instead of the “caricatures” hitherto. But this flow of amendments “allows you to manage the tempo a little, to speed up, to slow down”, instead of letting the pace be dictated, for his part opposed the rebellious François Ruffin.
If the Assembly does not come to the end of the amendments by midnight February 17, the text will still be able to pass to the Senate, due to the choice of the executive to resort to an amending budget from the Secu.