700,000! This is the number of sub-amendments tabled on Thursday to the pension reform project by Communist deputies and the rebels. A figure that sounds strangely as if echoing the 700,000 votes that Jean-Luc Mélenchon lacked to reach, in 2017, the second round of the presidential election ... "We assume not to make the task easy for the government and the majority , underlines the deputy LFI Clémentine Autain. And we use all the institutional means that are at our disposal. "
Even if Thursday's session was less hectic than that of the previous day, punctuated with insults, 17 suspensions of session and 71 reminders of the rules, the National Assembly is indeed on the verge of paralysis. “We are not here to co-construct a text, insists Adrien Quattenens, LFI deputy for the North. But for this reform to be withdrawn or submitted to a referendum. "François Ruffin, the LFI deputy for the Somme, goes there with his good advice to the government:" Eliminate the accelerated procedure, provide the Council of State with a real impact study and resume debate after the municipal elections. I am convinced that the opposition will then engage in constructive work. "
“At this rate, the text will be voted… in three years! "
No need to be an expert in social law to convince oneself of the will to obstruct - a "zealous strike" assumed by a part of the left - prefer to say the Insubmitted. Some examples: an amendment, the discussion of which can last almost half an hour, replaces the word "regression of social rights" by that of "weakening" while another proposes the verb "lead" rather than "lead ".
“At this rate, calculates a UDI deputy, due to debates 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, the text will be voted… in three years! According to another LREM deputy, the vote would rather take place in ... twenty years! On Thursday, at the opening of the meeting, after 12.44 minutes of discussion in the hemicycle, Article 1 was not yet voted… 36,510 amendments remained to be examined. "I asked to speak at 10 am this morning, it is 1:15 pm and I still do not see the moment when I will finally be able to speak," exclaims Erwan Balanant, MoDem MP for Finistère.
"The communists and the rebels dirty our institution, moves Gilles Le Gendre, president of the LREM group. They seek to "embolize" the system. But we will not fall into the hysterization of the debate. "And the deputy of Paris to be indignant:" How the opposition can affirm that it is gagged whereas with about thirty deputies, the Communists and the Insubmissives occupied 20% of the duration of the debates! "
The prospect of 49.3 seems more and more likely
"The government and the left opposition are responsible for this dismal spectacle," sighs Damien Abad, president of the Republican deputies. The first by not setting up a TLP, a scheduled legislative time, to better frame the discussion and the left by obstructing. "
To avoid relaunching the controversy that had contributed to heckling the session on Wednesday, Richard Ferrand, the President of the Assembly, had to backtrack on a measure, however constitutional. Thus the amendments, the subject of which is identical to that of an already rejected amendment - that is to say 1,184 amendments of the Communist group - will again be put under discussion.
What further prolong the debates. Until when ? A third week could be opened in early March. But it is especially the prospect of the implementation by the government of article 49.3, allowing the adoption of the text without a vote, which seems more and more probable. "The only question that remains, says a tenor of the majority, is who the opposition or the government and the majority will assume responsibility in the eyes of public opinion." "