Many opponents of the pension reform claimed that Emmanuel Macron had promulgated the law in the middle of the night, a sign of a “provocation”. An error which results from a confusion between publication and promulgation of a law.
The symbol of a president disconnected from reality? Emmanuel Macron would have chosen the heart of the night from Friday 14 to Saturday 15 April to enact the unpopular law on pension reform. This is what many of the opponents of this reform claim, but also some media. This is particularly the case of Olivier Faure, the boss of the Socialist Party, and Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally group in the Assembly.
The enactment of the #PensionReform at 3:28 a.m. says a lot about the President’s feverishness.
We now have an immense hope to raise to prevent chaos from prevailing. This hope is up to the left and environmentalists to embody it.#le69Inter pic.twitter.com/E5bGUqXuqm
— Olivier Faure (@faureolivier) April 15, 2023
By choosing to enact the unjust pension law at 3:28 a.m., Emmanuel Macron is committing yet another provocation against the French.
– Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) April 15, 2023
An erroneous assertion, which stems from the confusion between the promulgation of a law and its publication in the Official newspaper. The President of the Republic in fact promulgated it well before 3:28 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The text published overnight, but promulgated before
To see more clearly, we must look at the last stages of a legislative text. After the adoption by the Parliament and the validation of the Constitutional Council, a text of law is promulgated, that is to say signed by the President of the Republic. The next step is the publication on the website of the Official newspaper. This is where all new laws are posted, as well as ordinances and other regulatory texts. They are thus known to all and are therefore applicable.
This Official newspaper appears from Tuesday to Sunday and is generally published at night. “The use, the political and legal obligations led to a morning publication of the JORF (on average between 2 and 7 hours) but the exit of this one does not know official schedule defined”, noted the Department of Legal and Administrative Information.
Like all laws, the amending social security financing law for 2023, which pushes back the legal retirement age to 64, was therefore published overnight, inoccurrence around 2 a.m. Saturday. The 3h28 corresponds to the moment when the dispatch from Agence France Presse (AFP) fell: “The law on pension reform officially promulgated (Official Journal)”.
Emmanuel Macron signed the law on Friday evening
Emmanuel Macron necessarily signed the law before its publication overnight. It can also be seen in the Official JournalI since in the box reserved for signatures, it is indicated: “Done in Paris, April 14”.
The decision of the Constitutional Council, which validated most of the text, fell at 5:30 p.m. The president therefore signed the law into law between 5:30 p.m. and 11:56 p.m. on Friday, April 14. He therefore took less than seven hours to do so, which is much faster than what the oppositions accuse him of. Emmanuel Macron theoretically had until April 28 to enact the law.