At the end of this council of ministers on Wednesday April 26, Elisabeth Borne unveils in front of the cameras her long-awaited government roadmap for the coming months. It’s a new beginning, no doubt about it. “A new phase of action”, assures the Prime Minister. It is finally time to turn the page on pensions, and for good reason: the law was promulgated by Emmanuel Macron more than a week ago.
And yet, it was the President of the Republic himself who put the subject back on the long white table: in his introductory remarks that morning, he urged his ministers, deputy ministers and secretaries of state, all exceptionally together in the Ambassadors’ lounge, to “assume” the reform, to “continue to defend it”, explain several participants. That goes without saying ; but it goes, all the same, better by saying it, when the pans have been out for a few days already. Proof that the Head of State knows full well that he has not finished carrying his cross. That pensions, for a few months at least, stick to his skin like a damn band-aid.
“We must not suggest that the page would be turned and that everything would be forgotten, says Marc Ferracci, Renaissance deputy close to the President of the Republic. This reform will leave traces and we were prepared for it. The way forward is recover credit vis-à-vis the French by showing a reforming audacity.” This is the whole objective of Emmanuel Macron since he began his cycle of trips across France, to the tunes of a presidential campaign that he could not, or knew how to lead a year ago. The Head of State is involved in all subjects, from education to health, including ecological transition and, soon, reindustrialisation, by returning most of the members of his government to the role of business managers. common. What better than the Elysian voice to cover the sound of protests? “The president is doing the same thing as during the Great Debate, analyzes an experienced minister. He sends a long ball into the opponent’s twenty-two meters to save time and find some air, he multiplies the announcements on his side, and instructs Borne to renew the dialogue with the unions.”
“It pulls the chewing gum”
With the expected censorship of the two referendums of shared initiative (RIP) by the Constitutional Council, the government has saved itself several months of campaigning. But it was without counting on the imagination of the oppositions, in particular that of the group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires (Liot) in the National Assembly. During his parliamentary niche on June 8, the most hated centrist of Macronie, Charles de Courson, first signatory of the motion of censure against the post-49.3 government, will table a bill aimed at repealing the pension reform. “It is above all a media subject, because it pulls the chewing gum”, sweeps one at the Elysée, where one wishes to specify, like many members of the government or deputies of the majority, that the word “pensions” has disappeared from the vocabulary of the French crossed on the markets in recent weeks.
Media, no doubt. Politics, for sure. Unlike a motion of censure, which can only be adopted with an absolute majority of the votes of the deputies, a simple law only requires a relative majority. And the alliance of Nupes, the National Rally, Liot and part of the Republicans, coupled with the absence or abstention of some other parliamentarians, could inflict a severe defeat on the majority. “Even if some of us overplay a form of stress, the fact is that it can pass, and that’s boring,” whispers a minister.
Towards an obstruction?
For the executive, the legislative risk is altogether minimal: to be definitively adopted, the law will then have to pass the stage of the Senate, then of a joint committee, reducing its chances to a trickle. The symbolic risk, on the other hand, is significant. If the national representation – which has, strictly speaking, never spoken on the text – votes for the repeal of the pension reform, how does the government, which has been clinging since March 20 to the rejection of the motion of censure, could find the parade in the face of a result which, in addition to making headlines, will be haloed with the purest democratic legitimacy? Heads, the government loses. Faces, the oppositions win. The situation would seem inextricable, and could put fuel back into the engine of social protest… And pressure on the shoulders of Emmanuel Macron until July 14.
For the time being, the majority has no choice but to challenge, on a moral level, the method employed by the Liot group. “There is an endless, grotesque side to the situation, especially since it is a proposal which will cost billions and billions and which passes Article 40 of the Constitution (which prohibits any creation or aggravation of a public office). It is a real concern”, indicates the vice-president of the Renaissance group in the Assembly Sylvain Maillard. “The former deputy that I am finds it a pity that, in the spirit of democracy, we are tabling in the context of a niche a bill to repeal a law which has already been passed, believes Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo, Minister Delegate in charge of Territorial Organization and Health Professions. There, we have a small subject, and I am weighing my words. Criticism is also echoed in the entourage of the Head of State: “The basis of parliamentarism is not to unravel what has just been voted. We cannot let the oppositions be irresponsible”, grumbles- we at the Elysée.
To “not let the opposition be irresponsible”, there is still a solution… But it is not very good. Since a parliamentary niche ends immediately at midnight, the majority could multiply the amendments so that the law tabled by Charles de Courson is not put to the vote. In short, use the good old method of parliamentary obstruction, denounced by Renaissance and its allies when it is practiced by the Nupes.
In Macronie, the debate has only just begun. Gathered at the majority breakfast at Matignon on Tuesday morning to discuss the subject, the bosses of the Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons groups rather pleaded to avoid aping the opposition, but a joint decision should be taken at the end of the month. “Everything remains open”, summarizes a pillar of the government. “All the diagrams are on the table, indicates Sylvain Maillard. The position that we have always defended is to vote, but we cannot have a text every month that would come back to pensions. Sometimes, necessity makes law: it is in any case the position of certain grognards who have the ear of the president, like in particular the ex-president of the Assembly Richard Ferrand.
Again, for the majority, the Palais Bourbon is a hell paved only with bad solutions: defeat or, once again, after 49.3, an anti-democratic fraud trial. The president of the Renaissance group Aurore Bergé called on her troops on Tuesday morning for general mobilization on the day of the vote to hope to pocket a victory by a short head, the best of scenarios. For the government, the heat of the summer will perhaps depend on this June 8 and, by then, everyone knows that he will have this damn plaster stuck to his finger.