The Constitutional Council validated Friday the main part of the bill on pensions. Alongside his stormy legislative journey, other texts were examined and adopted in Parliament, but in a more discreet way. Franceinfo takes stock of five of them.
They have largely passed under the political and media radars, riveted on the pension reform. For more than three months, several legislative texts have struggled to exist in the public space. However, controversial measures, such as those contained in the Olympic bill to frame the 2024 Olympics in Paris, have meanwhile been definitively adopted, in the shadow of “the mother of reforms”.
While the Constitutional Council has closed the institutional course of the pension reform by validating the main part of the text, Friday April 14, franceinfo returns to the adoption of five texts examined by the deputies and the senators, parallel to the battle for pensions .
The inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution approved by Parliament
The Senate paved the way, on February 1, for the inclusion of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in the Constitution. The upper house, politically dominated by the right, voted favorably on this proposal from the ranks of La France insoumise (LFI) and adopted at first reading in the National Assembly on November 24. However, the Senate modified certain terms of the text. The notion of “women’s freedom” to resort to abortion has thus been substituted for that of “right to abortion”, initially voted by the deputies.
A constitutional law proposal having to be voted on in the same terms by the two chambers, the text was sent back to the Assembly, where it must be examined in second reading.
The fact remains that since then, Emmanuel Macron announced, on March 9 during the national tribute paid to Gisèle Halimi, that a constitutional bill, which will include the “freedom” to resort to the VG, will be “prepared in the next few months”. This would allow the executive not to have to go through a referendum on this subject.
A law aimed at accelerating the production of renewable energies enacted
At the very beginning of the year, another bill saw the pension reform overshadow it and gave the government a double dose of cold sweats. And for good reason: on January 10, the Prime Minister gives for the first time the details of the text and announces the postponement of the legal age to 64 years. The government knows that the various political forces in Parliament are not in favor of it, with the exception of the Les Républicains (LR) party, with which it will try to form an alliance.
On that day, the National Assembly also examines the bill relating to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies. And it is these same LR deputies who, by voting against the project with the National Rally (RN), almost derailed the government’s plans. The text, which aims in particular to promote the development of wind and solar power in the territory, was finally adopted thanks to the support of the Socialist deputies, the environmentalists having abstained.
“We did not want to vote against the text, but it was not ambitious enough in our view to catch up with France’s delays in terms of renewable energies”, sums up today Charles Fournier, deputy EELV. The date of the discussion did not play into the positioning of the party, he says. “We could have supported the government on this text if it had agreed to us, while unambiguously fighting pension reform”. The renewable energy law was officially promulgated on March 10, on the eve of the seventh day of mobilization against the pension reform.
The bill to regulate the influencer sector adopted unanimously in the Assembly
On March 30, the socialist deputy Arthur Delaporte and his Renaissance colleague Stéphane Vojetta saw their cross-partisan bill for regulate the activities of influencers on the internet and fight against certain abuses on social networks be adopted unanimously by the National Assembly at first reading, after “dense, but calm debates”, describes the elected PS. The text is now in the Senate, which must examine it in turn.
“It was a bit of a counter-example to the debates that took place during the pension reform. The Assembly was free and respected, the government did not obstruct parliamentary will and the oppositions were able to discuss calmly. “
Arthur Delaporte, PS MPat franceinfo
MEPs agreed on a battery of measures aimed at regulating the online influence sector, which is not subject to any regulation. The text prohibits the promotion of certain products, cosmetic surgery or “financial investments or investments (…) entailing risks of loss for the consumer”. It also tries to better define the status of influencer or influencer agent. The bill even got its quarter of an hour in the news with the publication, on March 25 in The Sunday Journalof a controversial column signed by a hundred influencers asking the legislator not to “not break” their business model.
The bill against squats approved at second reading by the Assembly
This text provoked the ire of the left and sealed an alliance between the presidential majority at the Palais-Bourbon (with the support of the RN) and the senatorial right. The National Assembly adopted, on April 4 in second reading, the bill proposed by Renaissance deputy Guillaume Kasbarian against illegal housing, called the “antisquat” law. Unanimously decried by associations fighting against poor housing, the text notably plans to triple the penalties incurred by squatters (up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros). These penalties extend “to the squats of disused or unoccupied buildings, which were not hitherto considered as offences”, deplores Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the Abbé-Pierre Foundation.
The bill also speeds up procedures in the event of unpaid rent. A “automatic termination clause” appearing in the lease contracts may be initiated by the owner without having to take legal action. Unpaid tenants who have remained in a dwelling “following an expulsion judgment that has become final” will also risk “7,500 euros fine”, specifies the site vie-publique.fr. The National Assembly had already voted in favor of the text on December 2, followed by the Senate on February 2. The latter must now examine it at second reading.
“This text will put even more people on the street, and with a fine as a bonus!”
Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the Abbé-Pierre Foundationat franceinfo
This text also raises the concerns of the UN. THE United Nations special rapporteurs on adequate housing, extreme poverty and human rights have published an press release on April 4 in which they warn of the consequences of this text and the increased risk of “criminalization of certain people in precarious situations”.
The JO 2024 bill definitively adopted by Parliament
It is perhaps the text that has suffered the most from its under-exposure in the media in recent weeks, at least for its detractors. Definitively adopted by Parliament on Wednesday April 12, the Olympic bill establishes a strong security system, supposed to allow the protection of the millions of participants in the Paris Olympic Games in the summer of 2024.
Certain measures are causing concern from the left and several associations, in particular Article 7 of the text, which provides for the use of algorithmic video surveillance (i.e. the analysis, by algorithms, of video surveillance images with the aim of detecting suspicious movements). The text also provides for tougher doping controls and the installation of body scanners at the entrance to the stadiums.
“My feeling is that it is a law that does not really deal with sport, but almost only issues related to safety”, deplores Emmanuelle Bonnet Oulaldj, administrator of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), who fears that the surveillance systems envisaged will be made permanent “beyond the Olympics”. “This is a major societal issue, to which more debate should have been devoted”, she believes.
Mobilized against the bill for several months, the association La Quadrature du net, which alerts in particular on the deployment of algorithmic video surveillance, sometimes had the impression of shouting in the desert. “We especially succeeded in drawing attention to the subject before the filing of the pension reform”, summarizes Noémie Levain, jurist and member of the association. An exercise that got tougher afterwards.
“The examination in public session in the National Assembly began on March 20, the same day as the examination of motions of no confidence against the government. There was hardly anyone in session…”
Noémie Levain, lawyer at La Quadrature du netat franceinfo
The article on algorithmic video surveillance, has, him, “was discussed on March 23, during the big demonstration which followed the engagement of 49.3 by the government”, continues the lawyer. Again, the benches of the hemicycle were rather empty, she describes, deploring that the government has initiated an accelerated procedure on this text. La Quadrature du net does not lose hope of remobilizing once the first experiments in algorithmic video surveillance begin, probably this summer. “The battle has only begun”, assures Noémie Levain.