It is a union of circumstance. With the arrival of the bill before the National Assembly and the Senate this week, and while nearly 115,000 people demonstrated this weekend in France against the extension of the Health Pass, the debates are likely to heat the spirits of parliamentarians. Hence, already, the wills of referral to the Constitutional Council. First of all the right and the senatorial center.
"During its examination (of the text, Editor's note) in the Senate, we will make sure to find the best balance between the need to fight the spread of the virus and the protection of our public freedoms,"
the two groups said in a statement last week .
It must be said that, despite a few dissonant voices, the right had not found many angles of attack in the turn of the sanitary screw of Emmanuel Macron.
Then that of La France Insoumise.
Monday, the group chaired by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the Assembly "sent a proposal in principle" to parliamentarians "to reach the number necessary for this referral".
A week led with beating drums
Because it is the entire left that will have to agree: a minimum of 60 deputies or 60 senators is needed to seize the Constitutional Council.
The LFI group alone has only 17 deputies in the National Assembly, while LR and the centrist Union in the lower house have a total of 203 senators.
For the entire political class, the next few days will be drummed up: examination of the bill in the Council of Ministers and opinion on Monday, arrival of the text before the National Assembly on Tuesday July 20, before the Senate on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 July.
Before a probable mixed committee on Saturday to grant deputies and senators.
Read also: Covid-19: Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounces the health pass
Faced with a text supported by LREM and its allies, globally approved by a majority of LR and PS deputies, “authoritarianism” trials are piling up.
In particular to La France Insoumise and the National Rally, which strongly criticized “discriminatory” measures aimed at “restricting the freedoms of the French”.
Read also: Covid-19: sovereignists try to unite against the health pass
What to bring the majority to answer by an opposite strategy: guest of LCI, Monday July 19, the deputy of Yvelines (LREM) Aurore Bergé explained
"a choice of constraint but also a choice of freedom: if you do not want to make you vaccinate, you will not be able to endanger the lives of others ”.
To counter a "stratospheric" surge of the Delta variant, according to government spokesman Gabriel Attal, the government is trying to encourage the French to be vaccinated as much as possible. Even if it means being accused of being liberticidal.