The week of March 13th, last week, was supposed to mark the end of the legislative process leading to the adoption of Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform bill. However, nothing is yet final, and the country is falling into havoc, due to the government’s choice to keep the final bill away from the final vote of the deputies. Now the government is at risk of being overthrown.
After the National Assembly examined the text of the law, it was passed on to the Senate for scrutiny. On Wednesday, March 15th, a joint committee composed of half deputies and half senators was charged with drawing up a compromise text based on the suggestions of both chambers. The discussions were successful, and on the morning of Thursday, March 16th, a joint text was validated by the committee.
This latest version includes a number of amendments made by the senators of the Les Républicains group. The parliamentarians agreed on the postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years—the central measure of the project. A proposed amendment was adopted—designed to put an end to the special regimes of EDF electric company; the French gas industry; Parisian transport; notary clerks, and the Bank of France for new employees. The LR senators obtained a slight advantage for mothers wishing to retire before the age of 64. The principle of a ‘senior contract’—to encourage the employment of people over 60 by reducing comprehensive social charges—was finally retained.
After the joint committee came to an agreement, the normal stage of the legislative process should have been the return of the proposal, thus validated, to the National Assembly for a final vote by the deputies. But the government decided otherwise.
Apprehensive of its ability to gather a majority on this bill—with respect to the growing number of deputies skeptical about the text—and wishing to show their disagreement with the government, Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne have chosen to resort to Article 49.3 of the Constitution. This clause allows for the adoption of a legislative text without the vote of the deputies, by engaging the ‘responsibility of the government’. If the government doesn’t receive a confidence vote, it is overthrown—and the pension reform law, by the same token, rejected.
Objections within Les Républicains group of deputies threatened to foil Macron and Borne’s plans. Some in the LR party are much more suspicious of the bill than their counterparts in the Senate, and despite strong calls from party president Éric Ciotti, several LR deputies had indicated that they did not wish to vote for it. The government did not want to run the risk of seeing its bill rejected by a few votes, and so invoked the constitutional article 49.3.
Since Elisabeth Borne’s announcement of her intent to use 49.3, accusations of the anti-democratic proceedings have been coming from all sides. The agitation was at its peak late afternoon, Thursday, March 16th, in the National Assembly. Couplets of the Marseillaise, booing and whistles rang out in the hemicycle.
The inevitable consequence of the use of the 49.3 is the advancing, once again, of motions of censure, motions that are intended to do nothing less than overthrow the government—the only constitutional means available for rejecting the pension reform law. This is not the first time that such a crisis has arisen: it has already happened several times in recent months, as we have explained in our columns. Now, the left-wing NUPES is willing to support a motion proposed by a centrist coalition to encourage ‘national union.’ The Rassemblement National announced that it would propose its own motion. The RN has stated that it is determined to bring down the government at all costs and is ready to vote on all motions, wherever they come from.
Indeed, this time, a trans-party motion, not emanating from the NUPES, nor from the RN, is going to see the light of day. Likely, this time, it will gather all the opposition. It is to be advanced on the initiative of a small group of centrist MPs, the LIOT group (Libertés, indépendants, outre-mer et territoires), that can act as a rallying platform for all opponents.
In this arm wrestling match between the government and the National Assembly, every voice matters. The magazine L’Obs tried to do a count: tallying the number of deputies of the LIOT group, those of the NUPES, and those of the RN, who have already announced their intention to support the motion, we arrive at a total of 257 votes. A total of 287 votes are needed to overthrow the government. The 30 missing votes are therefore to be found mainly in the ranks of the Les Républicains group, and among the non-attached members. However, for the time being, only ten LR deputies have expressed their wish to vote against the government.
The count is not there yet, but the game is still open. The authorities of the LR party have threatened to exclude those who would vote for a motion carried by the NUPES or the RN, but such a ban does not apply in the case of a motion proposed by the LIOT group.
In the country, the government’s announcement of the use of 49.3 has put France in a state of extreme fever. Several spontaneous demonstrations broke out in Paris and in the provinces, in the centres of major cities, and in front of prefectures. In Paris, the Place de la Concorde was taken over by demonstrators, forcing the police to intervene with fire hoses and tear gas. Far from calming the movement, the use of the 49.3 has rekindled it, as explained by the trade union leaders. A new national strike day is scheduled for Thursday, March 23rd, while chaos has taken over the capital.
The intensity of the mobilisation in France proves that the debate goes far beyond the issue of pensions. Three years to the day after the start of the lockdown, Emmanuel Macron, half-heartedly re-elected in 2022, is thus paying for his latent unpopularity and years of accumulated resentment. For the moment, he says he has no intention of giving in. Motions will be discussed on Monday, March 20th.
