And 100. This Thursday, March 16, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne activated article 49.3 of the Constitution, under the boos of the National Assembly. There will therefore be no vote on the pension reform, and the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years. At first reading, the deputies did not have time to decide, because of the 14,000 amendments tabled by the opposition. It is therefore the 100th time that 49.3 has been triggered. History repeats itself: before this political crisis, other texts adopted in this way had also deeply shaken France. And certain declarations of the time strangely resemble the last speeches of the Borne government and the oppositions.
49.3 of the Labor Law, a trauma under Valls
It is one of the recourses to 49.3 which has participated in demonizing its use. In 2016, Manuel Valls announced that the government would be held responsible for passing the very unpopular Labor Law, under the mandate of François Hollande, and after 210 days of social mobilization against it. “The application of 49.3 by the left against the left [les frondeurs, NDLR] was felt hard. Including by Emmanuel Macron…”, recently reported the former boss of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, in the columns of L’Express.
At the time, part of the PS majority of François Hollande opposed the reform. In fact, the president is in a situation of relative majority, and decides to pass the law, which relaxes the conditions of dismissals, and the minimum hours which can be proposed by the company, during hiring. “The government has lost the ideological battle, has lost all credit vis-à-vis the population, and moreover has undermined the values of the Republic”, declared the CGT at the time. Like an air of deja vu.
The first employment contract (CPE), stillborn in 2006
When the 49.3 passes, but is not enough. The first employment contract (CPE) will have survived… only a few days. This measure, supposed to facilitate the employment of young people, by allowing companies to test them for two years, had been adopted by a 49.3, announced by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, under Jacques Chirac. But, hardly voted, the president promises to plan it, in a televised speech, March 31, 2006. On April 10, a new bill gives up it completely.
The need and urgency to privatize France Telecom in 1996
We are in June 1996. Under Chirac, the government of Alain Juppé wants to change the status of France Telecom. “There is now both a need and an urgency to give France Telecom all the necessary weapons to face the competition”, he declared. Necessity and urgency? The left denounces privatization and opposes it. It proposes 500 amendments to drag out the debates. A derisory figure compared to the 14,000 of the pension reform of 2023. “We wanted to show the country that the government cannot with impunity lead a logic of destruction against a sector that is working well”, commented then a certain… Ségolène Royal. And the opposition, to denounce an “obstruction of the democratic debate”. Bis repeated.
CSA, CSG… The Rocard years
In the absence of an absolute majority in Parliament, Michel Rocard has engaged the responsibility of his government 28 times, under François Mitterrand. Fifteen texts are adopted thanks to 49.3, in particular the reform of the statute of the Régie Renault and the law of military programming 1990-1993, and the law creating the Superior council of audio-visual. This last resort to 49.3 was a surprise at the time. Observers of political life considered the reform to be rather consensual.
Another emblematic reform of the many 49.3 of Michel Rocard: the creation of the generalized social contribution (CSG), in 1990. It is a tax, partly proportional, which participates in the financing of social security and insurance unemployment. After only 10 hours of debate, the Prime Minister engages the responsibility of his government. “Reforming Social Security to guarantee its future, such is my ambition, such is the path on which the government must lead the country”, he declared then. Again, the words chosen strangely resemble those of the Borne government.
1958: Michel Debré, first to have triggered it
It is the very first of the 100. On October 4, 1958, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic comes into force. And with it article 49.3. “The Prime Minister may, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers, engage the responsibility of the government before the National Assembly on the vote on a finance or social security financing bill”, it is written. In post at Matignon in 1960, under the presidency of General de Gaulle, Michel Debrewho is one of the founding fathers of this text, uses it for the first time, and three times in a row, on the same subject: the bill aimed at providing France with a nuclear deterrent arsenal.
When Jean-Pierre Raffarin wanted to decentralize
When the 49.3 holds firm. Jean-Pierre Raffarin referred to Article 49.3 twice. While the left and the UDF tabled some 13,000 amendments on his reform of regional and European voting methods, he decided for the first time on February 15, 2003 to hold his government accountable. A motion of censure tabled by the left opposition is rejected. On July 27, 2004, Jean-Pierre Raffarin uses 49.3 again for the bill relating to local freedoms and responsibilities which promotes decentralization. A motion of censure tabled by the left is rejected.