For weeks now, the pension reform has been stirring people’s minds and plunging the French into total perplexity in the face of an inflexible executive. The difficulty of the debates and the impossibility for the deputies to agree in the National Assembly thus prompted Elisabeth Borne to engage the responsibility of her government to have the reform adopted thanks to article 49-3. After the rejection of a motion of censure, then the validation of the law by the Constitutional Council, the whole country now finds itself in an in-between, where it seems difficult to find an easy way out of the crisis. While the anger does not abate, can the law still be repealed?

While the French continue to demand the repeal of the pension reform, the executive wants to turn the page on the last difficult months. After having promulgated the law as soon as the decision of the Constitutional Council was pronounced, Emmanuel Macron is now seeking appeasement and a return to calm. However, in the ranks of the opposition, the time is, on the contrary, for a new era of struggle with the desire to have part of the law repealed as soon as possible.

Indeed, the deputies of the group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires (Liot) tabled, this Thursday, April 20, a bill in the National Assembly to request the repeal of the major article of the reform of retreats. They are thus demanding the abolition of the increase in the legal age of departure, planned from 62 to 64 years. At the same time, the PS deputies also tabled a bill, which also wishes to repeal the pension reform.

Asked about Franceinfo, Christophe Rossignol, adviser to Bertrand Pancher, thus affirmed that it was important to “give power back to Parliament” and that this approach followed a text which has not been examined and debated. But what is it exactly? Can this bill find a favorable outcome?

As reported by Alexandre Viala, professor of public law at the University of Montpellier, joined by Franceinfo, “the Liot and PS groups can consider a vote on the repeal of the law, but they will come up against the majority”. According to him, the opposition wishes, in this way, to cherish “the hope of dismantling what the majority has done”.

In this unprecedented context, the text should be examined on June 8, within the framework of the parliamentary niche of the Liot group. This is a day during which an opposition or minority group can set the agenda for the Assembly. For the time being, the Renaissance party seems worried about this idea and sees this prospect with a dim view.

In order to avoid a possible reversal of the situation, he is therefore considering tabling several amendments to prevent parliamentarians from voting on the text before midnight, the time at which the debates end. If the bill were passed in the Assembly, it would still have to pass through the hands of the Senate, which consciously supported the government in voting for the reform. The path therefore promises to be difficult and unpredictable.