the Senate adopts article 7 on the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years

The Senate adopted Wednesday, March 8, at the end of the evening, article 7, key to the pension reform project, pushing back the legal age of departure to 64 years. The vote was won by 201 votes against 115. The Minister of Labor reacted immediately on BFMTV, welcoming “a vote of accountability in the Senate”. Also questioned on Public Senate, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt said to himself “satisfied that this step has been taken in the Senate. It is a necessary reform to balance the pension system.”

The day before, the Conference of Presidents added a new weapon to the arsenal to speed up the discussion, by deciding to limit speaking to one speaker per group as well as explanations of vote on the article until the end of review of the bill.

Several “points of order”

Unsurprisingly, Wednesday’s session started with a series of “reminders of the rules” from the left returning to the events of the night. The senatorial majority on the right had suddenly accelerated the examination of this article by activating several procedural tools (closing of the debates by article 38, rewriting of the article, inadmissibility of the sub-amendments tabled). Several Communist, Ecologist and Socialist senators have notably challenged the application of inadmissibility and defended “the right of amendment”.

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“No Surprise”according to Patrick Kanner, who recognizes that the opposition fought well “with arguments which show that article 7 (…) could have been changed, even canceled by other financial measures refused by the right”. The senators have until Sunday, midnight, to examine the text, before about fifteen parliamentarians try to agree on a final version, during a joint joint commission, scheduled for March 15.