with this government, “we are still in provocation” believes the president of the ecologists in the Senate

“We are always in the provocation”, reacted Sunday March 12, 2023 on franceinfo, Guillaume Gontard, the president of the environmental group, solidarity and territory in the Senate. The senator reacted to the words of Olivier Véran. After the adoption by the Senate of the pension reform, the government spokesman explained that the majority was still “open to dialogue”. “When I hear Véran, I rather hear ‘we’re going to force through, we’re not going to listen to anyone'”replies Guillaume Gontard. “We see that this text was not voted on in the National Assembly and it was voted on under very specific conditions in the Senate with a set of devices to muzzle the Senate and which cannot be satisfactory.”

>> Pension reform: “We don’t want 49.3, we want a majority”, assures Olivier Véran

The senator from Isère no longer believes in the dialogue promised by the government. The last week of debates in the Senate was an example of “forced passage” according to him. “We were treated to rich debates for a week, then the government and the senatorial majority no longer wanted to debate. There is this desire to want to force through by not listening to anyone. We are cutting ourselves off French women and men.” For Guillaume Gontard, the government “discuss only with the senatorial majority. The Republicans are the wooden leg of a beleaguered government”.

Faced with this lack of consensus, and like many elected representatives on the left, the president of the environmental group calls on Emmanuel Macron to “find a way out”. Guillaume Gontard bets on the referendum. “We must trust, on such a strong text, the French. This government says ‘we must trust’ the common sense of the French, let’s do it.”