Softness, then strength? The government has an objective for the beginning of 2023, to quickly adopt its pension reform in order to be able to apply it next summer. A very tight schedule that will not support the slightest grain of sand, while the presentation of the project to the French has just been postponed by Emmanuel Macron. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was normally to give her arbitrations this Thursday, December 15, in particular with regard to the postponement of the retirement age to 65 years. The meeting is finally postponed to January 10, 2023, in just under a month.
Emmanuel Macron explained during the National Council for Refoundation: “This allows us to have a few more weeks so that those who (…) have just taken on responsibilities can, on some key elements of the reform, discuss with the government”. Remarks which target more particularly Eric Ciotti, elected this weekend at the head of the Republicans and Marine Tondelier, new leader of Europe Ecology The Greens. “It seemed appropriate to us to postpone the announcement of the finalization of the government’s proposal by a few days or a few short weeks”, added the President of the Republic, during a speech broadcast live on social networks.
Shift to better prepare for battle? If the consultations allowed the government not to rush the social partners, it knows that the fight will be long with the oppositions. Apart from Les Républicains, no party has announced that it will vote for the reform of executive pensions, bad news for the government which only has a relative majority in the National Assembly. As Le Parisien explained, during a dinner around the pension reform, the members of the majority decided to change techniques with the right and to seek individual support from the deputies. And if that’s not enough? The risk is known on the side of the government which, according to the daily, could opt for another solution… Much more brutal.
A 49.3 to pass the pension reform? A few weeks ago, before the start of the consultations, the government rejected the idea, favoring dialogue and the desire to move forward with all the political forces. It is now a new story that seems to be heard within the majority, according to a Renaissance senator. Invited on Public Senate this Monday, December 12, François Patriat explained that the pension reform could be done through a budgetary text and therefore in force. Is a new use of 49.3 possible?
“I think it will go through this vehicle,” said the senator, specifying “that the text will first pass to the National Assembly”. The goal? To be able to use 49.3 even if, according to the senator, “the government will do everything to try to convince” the opposition because “the objective is that there is no 49.3”. If the oppositions harden, then “we must keep the card of being able to advance by 49.3”, concluded François Patriat with Public Senate. At the heart of the debate, the postponement of the legal retirement age, which crystallizes discontent.
