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Macron threatens with new elections if the opposition blocks his new pension reform

2022-09-29T12:54:46.017Z


The French president revives the project to raise the retirement age in the face of broad political and union rejection


Emmanuel Macron has wielded for the first time since he came to power in 2017 the nuclear button of politics in France: the dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of new legislative elections.

The French president has told his parliamentary allies that, if the opposition blocks the pension reform in the National Assembly, he does not rule out calling the polls again.

Macron brandished the threat during a dinner on Wednesday night at the Elysee Palace with the leaders of the parties that support him in Parliament.

The objective was to define the plan to resurrect the most controversial of his reforms, which was shelved at the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, after weeks of strikes and demonstrations.

The new attempt – an electoral promise of Macron in the campaign that led to his re-election last May – coincided this Thursday with the first day of strikes and demonstrations this fall, a day that marks the

rentrée

or start of the union course.

The pension reform focused a good part of the messages on the protests called by the CGT and other unions, but in which two of the big centrals, CFDT and Force Ouvrière, did not participate.

The reform, which could increase the legal retirement age from 62 to 65, meets with the rejection not only of the unions but also of the leftist opposition and the extreme right, reinforced in the legislative elections last June.

It also raises objections among some members of the so-called presidential majority, a relative majority since the legislative ones.

They fear that the project will ignite tempers in the street and ruin Macron's second five-year term.

The Elysee dinner should serve Macron to fine-tune the strategy with his partners.

The express route, the president's favorite, but which allies such as the veteran centrist François Bayrou considered a mistake, was ruled out.

He would have meant imposing the reform through an amendment to the social security budget law, this very fall and avoiding social dialogue, with all the risks that it entailed in the Assembly and on the street.

The agreement consisted, in the end, in giving themselves a little more time.

First, and to show that Macron does not act unilaterally and is willing to listen, the government will seek "agreement" with the unions and employers for a few weeks.

Later, it will present the reform as a bill, and not as an amendment.

It intends that it be adopted before the end of winter and that it enter into force in the summer of 2023.

The parties that support Macron form the first block in the hemicycle in number of deputies, with 250, but they are far from the threshold of an absolute majority, 289. Without opposition votes, there is no reform.

The Macronists rely on the support of the traditional right of the Republicans, historically favorable to reforming pensions and the fourth parliamentary force.

But they cannot take anything for sure.

Faced with the blockade, Macron could resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution.

This article makes it possible to close the parliamentary debate on a law and approve it without a vote.

In this case, the only option to stop the law is to present a motion of censure, which in the current Assembly the opposition (the leftist coalition, the Republicans, the extreme right of Marine Le Pen) could win.

"If all the oppositions coalesced to adopt a motion of censure and bring down the government, [Macron] would appeal to the French and the French would decide and say what new majority they want," declared the Labor Minister, on the LCI network. Olivier Dussopt, in charge of the dialogue with the social partners in the coming weeks.

Macron's threat is a call to close ranks.

He addresses the Republicans, already very weak and who would have much to lose in a new legislative.

But also to those who, in their own ranks, are not quite convinced that it is time to launch themselves into the dangerous battle of pensions.

His allies are less disciplined today than in the previous legislature, when the president had an absolute majority.

The boss can't come forward a third time in 2027. His authority is no longer what it used to be.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-09-29

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