The executive and executives of the presidential camp have developed a strategy to avoid at all costs, on June 8, a vote by deputies with a very uncertain outcome.
The presidential majority has a plan. For several weeks, Emmanuel Macron’s camp has been looking for a parade to counter the bill from the centrist group Liot (Freedoms, Independents, Overseas and Territories), which aims to repeal the pension reform. The text is supposed to be debated in the National Assembly on June 8 … unless the majority manages to bury it by then. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and the main executives of the presidential camp agreed on a response strategy on Tuesday, May 23, during the weekly majority breakfast. The information, revealed by Mediapart, was confirmed to franceinfo by several sources.
In agreement with the Elysée, the various parties of the majority have acted that they did not want a vote of the deputies on this bill. An option deemed too dangerous, as the outcome of the ballot is uncertain. “Can you imagine the tsunami if the Assembly votes to abolish the passage to 64 years?”launches a heavyweight of the majority at France Télévisions. “The situation has forced us to explore all facets of the regulations and the Constitution. I’ll tell you a secret: I’m not comfortable with all that, but we have to find the least worst of evils. Because it’s chaos if this law is voted”explains another official of the presidential camp.
“It’s a deathblow if this bill passes.”
A leader of the majorityat franceinfo
The strategy described to France Télévisions by this tenor of the majority is well put together. It is “DELETE” in the Social Affairs Committee the first article of Liot’s bill, which proposes the repeal of the postponement of the legal age from 62 to 64 years. The opposition would then have no choice but to reinstate this provision in the form of an amendment, during the debates in session in the hemicycle.
“No question of bending the rules”
At this stage, the majority then relies on the intervention of the President of the National Assembly. Yaël Braun-Pivet would indeed be competent to draw article 40 of the Constitution, which provides that the proposals and amendments of parliamentarians are not admissible if they lead to a reduction in revenue or an increase in public charges. A questionable argument, but used for days by the ministers parading on television sets to explain that the bill is “unconstitutional”.
If Yaël Braun-Pivet intervened in this way, the scope of the bill would be reduced to nothing. “I’m not there yet. If [Yaël Braun-Pivet] the fact, it will not shock me”, comments to franceinfo Jean-Paul Mattei, president of the MoDem group at the Assembly. The president of the lower house has resisted in recent weeks certain voices within her camp asking her to convene the office of the Assembly in extremis. With the aim of drawing article 40 from the finance committee, in place of its president, the deputy La France insoumise (LFI) Eric Coquerel. “There is no question of bending the rules of the Assembly”however, assures the entourage of Yaël Braun-Pivet.
According to Article 89 of the Assembly’s rules of procedure, it is indeed up to the Chairman of the Finance Committee to decide on the admissibility of such a bill. If the entourage of Yaël Braun-Pivet refuses to indulge in political fiction, he nevertheless confirms that he is coming back “legally” the President of the Assembly to consider the amendments tabled in session admissible or not under Rule 40. “And from the start, his position has remained that the text is not admissible under Article 40”adds his entourage.
The majority took out their calculator
The majority would like to point out that there are still several stages before such a scenario can come to fruition. Eric Coquerel must first decide, in the Finance Committee, on the compliance of the Liot bill with this famous article 40 of the Constitution. Then, the Social Affairs Committee must still study the text on the merits from May 31. “I will fully assume the fact that we can table an amendment aimed at deleting article 1 [de la proposition de loi Liot]. We are against this text”says Jean-Paul Mattei. “I will not understand why we do not do it. (…) I want us to use all the normal legislative process and what the Constitution allows us.”
“I am not saying that I do not want a vote. I am saying that a vote in one day, in a niche, to make a ‘pension counter-reform’, is not serious.”
Jean-Paul Mattei, president of the MoDem group at the Assemblyat franceinfo
In the Social Affairs Committee, the presidential camp is in the minority. It has only 32 seats, against 39 for the opposition. But the majority is counting on the reinforcement of some of the eight Republican (LR) deputies to delete article 1. The margin is small. According to information from franceinfo, the majority would also count on the reinforcement of a 33rd deputy from the presidential camp who would come to fill the seat left vacant by the deputy Horizons Thomas Mesnier, beaten during a partial legislative after seeing his election invalidated.
For the rest, the executives of the majority take out the calculator. “Of the eight LRs, you have Alexandre Vincendet and Philippe Juvin”, two reputed “Macron-compatible” deputies, lists a Macronist framework. On the side of the Liot group, there were, in the ranks of the right, three deputies opposed to the bill and three others who could be in favor of the text. The balance could therefore tip against repeal.
“Entrenched in the Constitutional Bunker”
Whatever the fate of the bill, the scenario imagined by the majority is already creating indignation on the side of the opposition. “That would mean that Yaël Braun-Pivet passes me over to make a provision inadmissible when it has been deemed admissible by the finance committeereacts to Mediapart the deputy LFI Eric Coquerel. If she embarked on a maneuver of this type, it would be politically extremely costly for her.
“We have known from the start that they [la majorité présidentielle] seek by all means to avoid a fateful vote in the hemicycleexplains to franceinfo the deputy Liot Benjamin Saint-Huile. They are in an uncomfortable situation. They want to condemn us to reconsider our proposal by an amendment in order to draw the inadmissibility. But they have already lost the symbolic battle of public opinion. They took refuge in the constitutional bunker.”