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Macron imposes the pension reform by decree and faces a motion of no confidence and new protests

2023-03-16T14:31:17.412Z


By circumventing the parliamentary vote with article 49.3 of the Constitution, the French president risks setting the street on fire even more


It is a declaration of impotence and at the same time a risky decision that can turn the street on again and activate a motion of censure that will bring down the French government.

Emmanuel Macron, without a sufficient majority in the National Assembly, has decided this Thursday that he will resort to the route of the decree to adopt the pension reform, a project that tests his ability to reform France.

The French president has ordered his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, to activate article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a law without a vote.

The news, advanced by the BFMTV television network, was released a few minutes before the start of the vote in the National Assembly, at 3:00 p.m. local time.

Macron concluded that he could not count on enough deputies to reach a majority.

The accounts did not come out.

He urgently convened a Council of Ministers, and opted for the express and unilateral route.

The opposition, to stop the reform that would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, now has one last option: present a motion of no confidence in the Borne government and win it.

You have 24 hours to do it.

When the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, was about to speak before the chamber, a large part of the deputies began to sing

La Marseillaise

, in an atmosphere of unusual agitation.

The President of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, suspended the session for two minutes.

When restarting, still between chants and shouts of "resignation, resignation", Borne declared that, in accordance with article 49.3, he was putting the responsibility of his Government at stake and assumed that, in the coming days, one or several motions of resignation would be voted on. censorship.

“Democracy will thus have the last word,” she added.

In the legislature that began in June 2022, both the left and the extreme right have presented several motions of censure, but all have failed by not concentrating the opposition vote.

They could win it if, to the votes of the left and the extreme right, a part of the votes of Los Republicanos (LR), the traditional right-wing party, are added.

The president has warned in the past that, if a motion were successful, he would dissolve the Assembly to call new legislative elections.

These could lead to a new parliamentary majority and a new government.

The outcome of the pulse for pensions, after two months of social mobilizations and strikes that have partially paralyzed transport and flooded Paris with garbage, is partly the consequence of the legislative elections last June.

In those elections, Macron's supporters obtained more deputies than anyone else, but they lost their absolute majority and remained in the minority.

The day has been marked by strikes in transport, energy and ports.

In fact, the main union leaders have organized a press conference in the early afternoon before the National Assembly in a last-minute attempt to convince the doubtful deputies to reject the text agreed on Wednesday by both chambers.

“Those who have been elected by the people must respect the opinion of the people and, therefore, vote against it,” declared Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the CGT union.

During the morning, the Senate, controlled by the conservatives of Los Republicanos (LR), had adopted with 193 votes in favor and 114 against the law that increases the retirement age from 62 to 64 years and that accelerates the requirement to contribute 43 years to collect the full pension.

But the fate of the reform, its definitive adoption or its rejection, depended on the National Assembly.

There Macron's supporters form the first bloc in number of deputies, but they lack an absolute majority and needed the votes of the conservative opposition to adopt it.

Macron decided to resort to article 49.3 after meeting several times throughout the day with Borne and the leaders of his parliamentary group, and concluding that he lacked sufficient support to adopt the law in the National Assembly.

Macron lacked more votes from Los Republicanos (LR), the historical party of the moderate right.

This formation has been demanding for years to increase the retirement age, but among its deputies a part were reluctant to go against the mainstream in public opinion or to become a crutch for the centrist.

LR has 61 seats.

Macron, 250. The majority was in the 289.

The 49.3, which Borne has already used ten times since the start of the legislature, was the last resort for Macron and the most dangerous.

It is legitimate and constitutional, but the Government runs the risk of throwing more fuel into the protests and strikes against a reform that, according to polls, is rejected by two out of three French people.

The decree will feed the argument according to which Macron lives divorced from the citizenry and the reform is democratically lame, because he does not have a majority in Parliament.

The use of the decree bodes ill for Macron and marks the remainder of his second five-year term.

It could be counted as a victory for the opposition on the left and the extreme right.

And from the street, a fundamental actor in the history of France who has not scored any major victory for years.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-03-16

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