One thing is certain: they are all against it. The parties that form the New People’s Ecologist and Social Union (Nupes) are up against the pension reform, which should gradually raise the legal retirement age to 64 or 65 years. From all sides, we underline the injustice of a reform that the left does not consider absolutely necessary, according to its reading of the forecasts of the Pensions Orientation Council (COR). “It is a reform to break the poorest, once again”, affirms the EELV deputy for Paris Sandrine Rousseau, very upset. “Executives are already leaving at 65! The reform will just make sure to reduce the pensions of the most precarious, who will no longer leave at full rate. Savings to finance the continued decline in levies on businesses. It’s runoff in reverse! “, she berates.
“Everything will be good to stop this reform,” adds the ecologist. Everything, therefore also obstruction in the National Assembly (the fact of delaying the adoption of a law as much as possible, thanks to the tools of the rules of the chamber)? La France insoumise makes no secret of its intentions and its executives consider that parliamentary obstruction is a legal weapon available to the opposition. In fact, if the majority tries to stick this label of blockers on their backs, the practice is as old as parliamentarism. Communist Pierre Dharreville does not speak of obstruction, but for him it is “out of the question for the reform to pass like a letter in the post office”. He protests besides in front of the time of debate programmed for the reform: only one week for the moment.
Against the 65s or for the 60s?
“We are looking to see if there are things in the regulations of the National Assembly that can allow us to be smart, explains, without seeming to touch it, a socialist executive. But it will be a finance law, therefore more complicated. “More generally, the PS – which has also contributed to the parliamentary obstruction in the past – is a little more cautious. “It will be necessary to measure the way of opposing, believes Jérôme Guedj, deputy for Essonne. The government must not be given an avenue to justify rapid recourse to section 49.3. The famous constitutional device which allows the government to have a text adopted without a vote, provided that a motion of censure is not voted in stride.
It is also on the PS side that it gets stuck on the form that the parliamentary opposition to the reform must take: should we be content to reject this text or defend the counter-project of the Nupes which, in the agreement of the legislative elections, provides for the return to retirement at age 60 at full rate for forty years of contributions? For the president of the socialist group, Boris Vallaud, it “needs a simple message. A quarter of the poorest died at 62, how many at 65? You have to stay on top of it to be understood and intelligible”. On the rebellious side, we think that retirement at 60 can hit the mark… Even among the socialists: “In my constituency, the socialist activists, this idea mobilizes them”, believes a deputy from the south. The same wants to “take advantage of the fact that the RN is against retirement at 60 when their voters are for it. Do not hesitate to pound them on it! »
” Popular education “
If the pension reform should fail, it will not be completely played out in parliament: because even if the government did not have a majority, it could pass in force. It will be played especially in the street, on that also everyone is in agreement. The new head of ecologists, Marine Tondelier, has also explained that her sneakers were already ready. But behind what banners? EELV, PS and PCF are much more comfortable behind the unions, while LFI supports, in addition, another demonstration, on January 21. “It is a question of remaining the role of the unions and the decisions they take”, specifies Pierre Dharreville, deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône, who nevertheless intends to take initiatives on the ground.
The jitters of many deputies of the Nupes are already in the press and the public meetings are already multiplying, all the deputies questioned have added them to their agenda in their constituencies. Jérôme Guedj even wants to make the period a “great moment of popular education” around pensions. There will also be large public meetings: the first, with all the Nupes, is organized in Paris on Tuesday, January 10, the day of the presentation of the reform. The rebellious Raquel Garrido, for example, will also organize her meeting in February in Bobigny with a string of rebellious personalities.
There are therefore things to stall between allies of the Nupes. But all are well aware that they are playing big in the weeks to come. After a disappointing autumn for the united left, everyone thinks that the question of pensions – which is the subject that has always mobilized the most over the past twenty or thirty years – can allow them to regain control. And start to “change gear”, as Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the PS, called him on Thursday in Release. A goal that can help to get along.