The LR group, provider of votes for the presidential camp, still appears divided on this bill, giving cold sweats to the government on the outcome of the ballot.
“It’s very undecided. High risk week”, comments Renaissance MP Jean-Marc Zulesi. Two days before the final vote of Parliament on the pension reform, the games remain extremely open on the adoption or not of the very controversial government project. In question: the uncertainty that reigns around the vote of the National Assembly. “At this point, I have no idea [de l’issue du scrutin]“, confirms the Renaissance president of the Law Commission, Sacha Houlié. “Everyone has fun doing the accounts”, smiles a macronist.
On Wednesday, the Joint Joint Committee (CMP), a body which brings together seven deputies and seven senators, should in all likelihood lead to a common text. The next day, except surprise, the Senate will adopt the reform during a vote in the morning, as it had done on Saturday evening at first reading.
It is in the afternoon, at the National Assembly, that the future of the bill will be decided. The uncertainty is total. Firstly because the deputies, unlike their fellow senators, have never yet decided on the text. At the end of fifteen days of electric debates, the deputies had indeed not exceeded article 2 of the amending finance bill for Social Security. It is therefore difficult to know the balance of power in the hemicycle.
Then, because the key to the vote at the Palais-Bourbon is called Les Républicains. The right is the only political group that can allow the presidential camp, which only has a relative majority in the Assembly, to have the text adopted. However, Olivier Marleix’s group still appears to be divided on the subject. Will vote or not vote? “That’s the one-euro question of the moment”, confirms MP LR Stéphane Viry, one of the two leaders of his group on pensions.
The great unknown is called LR
According to several sources inside the Republicans, between 30 and 35 deputies plan to vote for the text, around fifteen could oppose it, and around ten would lean towards abstention. But the figures vary from one interlocutor to another. “We have at least 20 deputies ready to vote against, and we could even approach 25assures one of them. Some say they are undecided, when their choice is made, but they are perhaps afraid of being yelled at if they ever say they are against it.
On paper, the presidential camp has 250 votes, divided between three groups – Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons – and must therefore seek 37 votes to reach the absolute majority threshold (set at 287, the number of seats filled at the Assembly currently being 573). And youAll this remains theoretical, since the result of the vote is assessed solely on the votes cast. What add a dose of uncertainty.
At LR, some, like the deputy of Savoie Vincent Rolland, play with the nerves of the government by saying they want to decide after the result of the joint joint commission, Wednesday evening.
“I’m waiting for the text of the CMP to fix my vote: abstention or against!”
Emmanuel Maquet, LR deputy for the Sommeat franceinfo
An attitude that gives cold sweats to the majority. “I think we are taking huge risks. Between what they say and what they do, the LRs of the Assembly are not reliable”, deplores Renaissance deputy Benoît Bordat.
“The real subject is attendance”
Even within the majority, voices will be missing. At Renaissance, first. Former minister Barbara Pompili should not vote for pension reform, according to information from the Figaro. She would bring in her wake two of her relatives, the deputies Cécile Rilhac and Stella Dupont, members of her party In Common. On the side of the Modem, it will not be necessary either to count on the deputy Richard Ramos. “To date, I have not made my decision, but a priori, no, I will not vote for this unfair reform. This reform, whether it passes or not, will be a failure”, he said on RMC on March 12.
At Horizons, for the moment, only the deputy Yannick Favennec announced, on March 13 at the Figaro (article reserved for subscribers), that he would vote against the text when they were still five or six to express their doubts a few weeks ago. Set apart “the subject Favennec”a majority executive says to himself “rather reassured” on the future vote of the Philippist deputies.
In addition to these five votes which could escape the majority, the attendance rate worries the presidential camp. “The real subject is the presences. None of the three majority groups will have 100% presence, we will have to see the meaning of the absences…” slips a macronist. “In my opinion, the final count of the votes can only be done on Thursday morning”slips the deputy Horizons Paul Christophe.
The spectrum of 49.3
Faced with this ocean of uncertainties, some members of the majority consider it inevitable to resort to the famous Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the executive to have a text adopted without a vote of Parliament. “I am rather pessimistic about the fact that we will get there without 49.3. We have to wait for the result of the CMP, which could move the vote in one direction or another”, says a macronist. In the opposition too, we are anticipating, in the words of LFI MP Alexis Corbière, a vote “very tight”. “I see them draw the 49.3”predicts the elected official of Seine-Saint-Denis. “In my opinion, for the moment, 49.3 is inevitable”confirms MP LR Stéphane Viry.
A hypothesis, however, officially rejected by the executive. “We don’t want 49.3. We want to turn our relative majority into an absolute majority”, said government spokesperson Olivier Véran on Sunday after a meeting at Matignon with Elisabeth Borne and several ministers, including Bruno Le Maire, Olivier Dussopt and Gabriel Attal. Some majority parliamentarians want to believe in this scenario. “I am team ‘let’s go to the vote!'” deliver one of them. “I am confident, we will get there, the text will be improved in CMP and that will convince the last undecided”convinces another influential deputy of Renaissance.
“The question will be: does it go to one-two votes, or to ten votes or more? I bet for ten votes.”
An influential member of the majorityat franceinfo
The constitutional weapon of 49.3 has already been brandished ten times by Elisabeth Borne since the start of the legislature. But its possible use on such a divisive text is far from unanimous. For this member, it would be “counterproductive”, “not understood”, “given the political climate on this subject”.