While the pension reform is now on a launch pad before its implementation on September 1, 2023, opponents of the project continue to seek solutions to avoid this situation. On the French side, the days of mobilization followed one another, sometimes with violent clashes, without however flinching the executive, which carried out this controversial reform to the end. In the ranks of the opposition, a glimmer of hope nevertheless remains with the date of June 8 in sight and the proposal of the Liot group to repeal the reform. What are its chances of success?
Since the announcement of the pension reform made by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in January, France has been plunged into a violent confrontation between the executive and opponents of the bill. For many French people, raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, and then increasing the duration of insurance, are simply unthinkable after a life of hard work. For the unions and the opposition, which support this mobilization, it is also time to fight against a government that wanted to impose this reform at all costs.
However, it is a long democratic path that has accompanied this pension reform with an impossible vote in the National Assembly, then the use of article 49.3 by the government. Despite the filing of two motions of censure, one of which failed by nine votes, nothing could stop the process of adopting the text. The Senate, then the Constitutional Council, thus validated the pension reform before its immediate promulgation by the President of the Republic. However, in the ranks of the opposition, a last option seems to emerge for a new possibility of discussion in the National Assembly.
During this day, the Liot group (Freedoms, independents, overseas and territories) must, thanks to the parliamentary niche, lead the discussions in the National Assembly. In this context, he hopes to be able to pass a bill repealing the pension reform. If the project may seem utopian, it could however succeed since few votes are missing, if we are to believe the results of the last motion of censure tabled by the group.
Two days before this deadline, the unions have called for a new day of demonstration on June 6. According to the constitutionalist Philippe Blachèr, questioned by our colleagues from Capital, it is a “strategic use of all parliamentary techniques to pursue the political challenge of a law which has just been adopted”. Especially since the President of the National Assembly has shown no opposition to the validation of the parliamentary niche.
On the government side, the Minister of Labor affirmed, this Monday, May 22 on Franceinfo, that this bill had “no chance of succeeding” while Elisabeth Borne, for her part, judged this bill “unconstitutional”. However, the executive met recently, with other members of Modem and Horizons, to choose the strategy to adopt on June 8.
Still according to Philippe Blachèr, “the government can decide to play the game while being aware that the proposal is not admissible from a financial point of view”. It therefore remains possible to go to a vote, which could put the executive against the wall. Be careful, however, since the Senate will then have to decide when it has actually voted for this pension reform. A passage in joint parity committee will, once again, be necessary in this possibility, before, perhaps, an adoption of this bill.
