Parliamentary niches are the equivalent of Cinderella’s ball. An enchanted parenthesis of a day, during which the oppositions have their hands on the agenda. They can have their legislative proposals examined there and put forward their priorities in a well-rehearsed communication exercise. The president of the Liot group Bertrand Pancher can have a smile. His PPL aimed at repealing the pension reform is boiling the executive. The majority fears above all the symbolic force of a vote at the Palais Bourbon, while the deputies have never spoken on government reform.
The text has no chance of prospering. The Senate opposes it, the procedural obstacles are too heavy. But no matter: through internal meetings, the majority is looking for the best way to prevent a vote in the Assembly on June 8. “If it’s voted, it’s over. In public opinion, we will have lost,” said a Renaissance deputy.
“We fueled the general panic”
This activism is a double-edged sword. By implicitly accrediting the idea that a defeat would be a turning point in the five-year term, the majority and the government are transforming a simple communication stunt into a major political fact. “We fed the general panic and we made an event of a niche text without effect”, mocks a Horizons executive. A deputy close to Emmanuel Macron is more lenient: “All the media are on it. I have the impression that we are mainly reacting to all of this.”
Here is the majority launched in a Lépine contest to prevent the vote. The temptation of parliamentary filibuster first touched people’s minds. The executive then rallied to a sharper option: to declare the text inadmissible financially under article 40 of the Constitution. The latter prohibits any PPL from increasing public charges or diminishing resources.
The President of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet is under pressure from her people to bury the text. Initially reluctant to torpedo the PPL, the deputy of Yvelines changed her speech. She assured this Tuesday, May 30 on France 2 that she would “take her responsibilities” to replace the LFI president of the finance committee Eric Coquerel if he did not declare the text inadmissible. The rebel, responsible for examining the admissibility of the text, is in favor of its examination by the National Assembly.
“We had to totally trivialize this thing”
These strategic reflections are done in the open. Another track: the majority could delete article 1 of the PPL (on the return to 62 years) in the Social Affairs Committee this Wednesday, May 31 so that its return in the form of an amendment in session is declared inadmissible. A deputy suggested to the boss of the Renaissance group Aurore Bergé that the parliamentarians of the majority leave the hemicycle in the event of a vote.
In short, it cogitates from all sides. This outpouring gives weight to the initiative of Liot, who did not embark the whole Assembly in his approach. “All of this shows that we are fragile, judges a majority executive. Now, there will be a before and after June 8.” “We had to totally trivialize this thing, abounds a Renaissance pillar. We come to talk about strategy and grub. All of this will reinforce an image trait that is not good for us.”
This image ? That of a government that would not accept the relative majority configuration. That of a majority which would not have acquired the art of losing, inevitable in this Assembly. The oppositions have rushed into this breach and are already instructing the trial of an authoritarian power. “They are transforming Liot’s text on pensions into a text on the relationship to parliamentary democracy, assures LR deputy Aurélien Pradié. The government is playing a form of democratic sabotage, it will blow up in his face. Everything it stems from a fairly illiberal relationship to democracy.”
The memory of 49.3
This collective excitement echoes the examination this winter of the pension reform. The executive swore not to want to trigger article 49.3 to have its reform adopted, before retracting. “A major mistake, then confided a Renaissance pillar. We demonized the 49.3 instead of assuming from the outset the possibility of using it.” This new dramatization is likely to produce the same effects. Through its efforts, the government shines the spotlight on a sequence from which it has nothing to gain. “The same story repeats itself, it’s tiring,” laments a majority heavyweight.
These strategic procrastination underlie a question: will the French have their eyes fixed on the National Assembly on June 8 in the event of a vote? A mobilization against the pension reform will take place two days earlier in the streets of France. “A lot of people are watching this from afar”, recently confided a Renaissance deputy. It is now possible to doubt it.