One week on the spot. Unsurprisingly, the debates in the National Assembly, started Monday in public session, concerning the pension reform do not progress. The strategy of “parliamentary obstruction”, carried out by La France Insoumise and the Communist Party, is bearing fruit. Of the 40,000 amendments tabled (including 36,000 by LFI and the PC), only slightly more than 4,000 were examined on Friday. "It's more the Assembly, it's a circus ..." breathes a Macronist deputy. To make matters worse, the rebellious and Communist deputies are now tabling subamendments to all of their amendments. "We spend two hours each time examining the dozens of subamendments attached to one and the same amendment ... They are in a delaying logic", regrets another MP LREM.
On the LFI side, the strategy is perfectly assumed. "We will explain the text piece by piece. We will not give in. We will show that it is not only the rebellious and communist deputies who are opposed to the text of the pension reform but the whole French people! “, Hammered Jean-Luc Mélenchon again Thursday evening during a meeting in Toulouse.
Richard Ferrand's failed attempt
Richard Ferrand tried to speed up the pace on Wednesday. Under the new regulations, the President of the National Assembly wanted to reject amendments with the same purpose, if they have no legal value. More than a thousand amendments tabled by the Communists could thus have disappeared. What raise the bronca. "Richard Ferrand wanted to prevent the discussion of 1184 of our amendments, thus making Communist deputies the target of his authoritarianism," the group denounced in a press release. Faced with the indignation that finally surpassed the ranks of the left, the President of the Assembly saw fit to back off.
Despite everything, the executives of La République en Marche certify that the text will be well adopted at first reading before the truce of the municipal elections on March 6. A third week of debate has already been added to the first two scheduled. The exam will also continue on weekends. However, many opposition MPs, as well as the majority, still consider the delay untenable. "It is simply impossible," regrets a deputy LR. " It would take 150 days of session in a row to study everything , " points out depressed LREM MP Laurence Maillart. "All this because of around thirty deputies ... We have to come back to reason. The French have the right to a real debate, ”she claims.
"The 49-3, we will discuss it if there is reason to discuss it"
Long rejected by the majority, the use of article 49-3 now seems inevitable to get around the obstruction. Already used under the quinquennium of François Hollande, this maneuver allows the Prime Minister to pass “in force” a text of law, by engaging the responsibility of the government. Questioned by CNEWS Friday morning, Gilles Le Gendre, the president of the LREM group, seemed to be preparing the ground. "The 49-3, we will discuss it if there is reason to discuss it," he warned.
Not yet drawn, his appeal is already controversial, even within the majority. Four deputies from the left wing of LREM - Delphine Bagarry, Jean-François Cesarini, Stéphane Claireaux and Sonia Krimi - and two related to the majority group - Albane Gaillot and Annie Chapelier - made their opposition public on Friday. "We refuse to consider as the only way out the use of this parliamentary procedure which - let us remember - allows the government to pass a law without debate and without vote, namely therefore, without Parliament" , they denounce in a press release .
On the right, some see it above all as a “dupe game” between the majority and the “sterile” opposition of LFI and the PC. “The left is pushing the government to crime by playing on obstruction in order to relaunch social mobilization. Conversely, the government will say that it had no other choice than to draw the 49-3 ... It's win-win, " sighs a Republican MP.
