While the unions are preparing for the day of mobilization on Tuesday March 7, in the Senate, the examination of the text on the pension reform will continue all day on Sunday March 5. Unlike deputies, senators sit on weekends and part of the night. With a challenge: to examine the entire text contrary to what happened in the Assembly. Article 1 aimed at abolishing certain special regimes (RATP and energy companies in particular) was adopted overnight. But the debates, here too, are falling behind.
Cascading reminders of the rules, filing of dozens of amendments during the session. Since Friday, March 3, the senatorial left has been using the same instruments as the Nupes in the Assembly to delay the debates. Even if the atmosphere is more serene in the Upper House, Article 7 which provides for the postponement of the legal age, the heart of the reform is still not in sight. The Left does not hide its intention to wait until Tuesday evening, after the day of mobilization, to withdraw hundreds of amendments and allow to get to the heart of the matter.
Wait for the middle of the week
It will therefore probably be necessary to wait until the middle of next week for article 7 to be discussed. Just like the modifications wanted by the senatorial right which arrive later in the discussion, such as the acceleration of the end of the special diets and the device of surcote for the mothers of families in particular.
Article 38, scarecrow brandished by the senatorial right
But unlike the Assembly, the presidency of the Senate has a very effective instrument for speeding up debate in the event of obstruction: article 38, which makes it possible to limit speaking and trigger a vote on all or part of the text. . This tool has never been used before, but the senatorial right has clearly threatened to use it to get to the end of the text. ” It would be a coup “Warns Laurence Rossignol, Socialist Vice-President of the Senate.
►Also read : Pensions: how the left and environmentalists try to exist in the Senate