This is the most emblematic measure, of Emmanuel Macron on the environment.
An express request from the Citizen's Convention on the climate.
Alas, the referendum aimed at making it possible to include the fight against global warming in the constitution, would be, according to the deputy LREM Pyere-Alexandre Anglade, rapporteur of the bill, badly started.
"As it stands, the conditions for the referendum are not met," he explains in the JDD.
And the newspaper to drive the point home by affirming that the president would have purely and simply renounced this promise made in front of the citizens of the Convention on December 14th.
The Elysee was quick to deny it.
"The modification of article 1 of the Constitution is in no way buried, nor the referendum project", we strike at the Castle.
Nevertheless, even as climate marches are organized this Sunday in France, doubt has settled.
Indeed, to be put on track, this referendum requires that the Senate and the National Assembly tune their violins.
Clearly the two chambers are voting on an identical text.
Read alsoA referendum on the climate, what for?
On March 16, the deputies acted to modify article 1 of the Constitution, to engrave therein that France “guarantees the preservation of the environment and biological diversity and the fight against climate change”.
Last Wednesday, in committee, the senators (mostly on the right) rejected the term “guarantees”, too restrictive in their eyes for companies, preferring that of “preserving”.
The text will be examined by the Senate from Monday.
"It will not be identical, and therefore, the story will stop there for the referendum", summarizes Senator LREM François Patriat.
"He never wanted to hold this referendum, which he would have lost anyway"
The majority therefore worked this Sunday to blame the senators on the right. “The ball is in the Senate's court. There is today a will, obviously of the senators, to torpedo the proposal ”of the Citizens' Convention, tackled the spokesman of the government Gabriel Attal. "In the Senate, there is a more conservative majority on environmental issues," added Richard Ferrand, LREM president of the Assembly. An argument that does not fail to annoy even some of the mainstream leaders: “It just allows us to trap the right and send them back to their responsibility. It's petty political politics, ”sighs an eminent parliamentarian.
And which obviously unleashes passions on the right. "On more than two-thirds of the texts examined in 2020, we found a compromise: we cannot say that we have a blocking attitude", underlines the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau. And to denounce a "maneuver": "Emmanuel Macron never wanted to make this referendum, which he would have lost anyway," he shouts. On the left either, the pill does not pass: "It is the fault of Emmanuel Macron", who made "as usual a promise that he could not keep", accused on France Info the national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou. While the ex-LREM deputy Matthieu Orphelin judges that "the government has maneuvered so that the process does not go to the end, refusing all consultations with the Senate".
There remains then an option to modify the constitution: that this revision be adopted in 3 / 5th by the Parliament meeting in Congress. But there again, as Bruno Retailleau underlines, it is far from being won: "With his attitude towards the Senate, Macron closes the door to a Congress".
