The atmosphere was at loggerheads on Friday at the National Assembly for the final day of review of pension reform in France: the chances of addressing the key measure on postponing the age remained very slim, the left radical now at all costs thousands of amendments.
After nine days of epic debates, the debates are making little progress, between points of order and suspension of the session, on the question of the financing of the system. And the mines are tired after two very stormy weeks of examination.
At midnight, whether or not the deputies have had time to discuss article 7 raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, the curtain will fall in the Assembly and the text will go to the Senate.
A motion of censure tabled by the National Rally (RN, far right), but which presents no risk of bringing down the government, will be examined immediately afterwards, in the presence of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
There is “very little chance that we will go to the end of the text” this Friday, lamented on franceinfo Franck Riester, Minister of Relations with Parliament. “We don’t even know if we will be able to go as far as Article 7”.
Whose fault is it ? Everyone accepts responsibility.
Franck Riester accuses the left of “blocking democratic debate”. More than 1,500 amendments remain to be discussed before this article 7, most coming from the deputies of La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) – the other formations of the left alliance NUPES having withdrawn theirs to move forward.
“We hope that this test of truth will last longer”, by opening sessions in the Assembly next week, launched François Ruffin (LFI) in the hemicycle.
The NUPES is divided on the advisability of going to the vote on article 7, as pressed by the unions which organized a fifth day of mobilization on Thursday.
The demonstrations gathered Thursday 1.3 million people according to the CGT union, 440,000 according to the Ministry of the Interior. This is the lowest figure since the beginning of the mobilization, pending March 7 when the unions threaten to put the country “at a standstill” if the government does not withdraw the reform.
“It’s going to be sporty”
Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, recognized “tactical differences” within the left alliance, but which “are not insurmountable”, because “we are all opposed to this reform”.
Thursday evening the leader of LFI Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is no longer a deputy, considered this withdrawal of amendments “incomprehensible” and called on the deputies not to “rush” towards article 7.
“Looking forward to getting beat?” he asked on Twitter, drawing the wrath of the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal, who denounced a “rocking” and a “confession” to “draw out the debates”.
The tone rose with the RN also, Marine Le Pen accusing the executive of having the “objective” of “lowering pensions”, which Gabriel Attal challenged.
Friday at midnight, it will be the first time that the reading of a text will be interrupted because the constitutional deadline will have been reached.
“It’s going to be sport,” said an elected representative of the majority, Renaissance, who does not despair of arriving at the examination of article 7.
He recalls that the deletion amendments coming from the left and from a few Republican deputies, the traditional right, would be the first to be examined: “To reject them would amount to a hollow adoption”, he imagines.
Emmanuel Macron’s party is counting on the support of the Republicans in this reform, but they are not in order behind him.
The tension has been at its height for two weeks after insults from an LFI deputy towards the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt and the exclusion for 15 days of another elected official from this party, who had also targeted Mr. Dussopt in a photo posted on Twitter.