A bill in the National Assembly to reverse the 2023 pension reform? This is the promise made by Mathilde Panot on Tuesday, July 23. The president of the La France insoumise group in the National Assembly stated this morning on the microphone of France Inter that his parliamentary group would submit on the same day “a bill to repeal the reform of retirement at 64 years of age”.
The New Popular Front had made the repeal of this reform one of its main promises in the event of victory in the legislative elections and access to government. Failing to take control of the executive, as they have been demanding since July 7, La France Insoumise has therefore opted for a bill to be submitted to the National Assembly.
An initiative already supported by the president of the environmentalist group in the Assembly, Cyrielle Chatelain. “We fought together against retirement at 64. We are jointly tabling the repeal of the pension reform. And together we will succeed in convincing the Assembly to put an end to this unfair reform,” she stated on her X account on Tuesday.
“It is true to our program, so we will vote for it”
“Convince the Assembly”, perhaps, but who? This Wednesday, a first ally of circumstance has in any case already declared itself in favor of this proposal: the National Rally. “It is faithful to our program, so we will vote for it”, Laurent Jacobelli, RN deputy of Moselle, assumed on BFMTV, thus opening up prospects for having this text adopted. With the votes of all 193 deputies of the New Popular Front groups, and those of the 142 deputies of the National Rally and Eric Ciotti’s group, the absolute majority (289 deputies) would be quite largely exceeded. But even with this hypothetical majority, However, several major challenges are already looming to see such a proposal succeed soon – or even succeed, quite simply.
The first is a matter of timing. While the deputies officially returned last week, the National Assembly has already suspended its work for the rest of the summer, and their return is not expected until September.
Also, as long as the resigning government remains in place, the opposition groups have only a very weak parliamentary initiative. To see this proposal discussed in the hemicycle, the first possible dates would be those of the parliamentary niches – these days when the opposition groups have free rein to put on the agenda the bills of their choice. However, the first niche of this new legislature has already been allocated on October 31 to the… National Rally. Who could therefore get ahead of the left and submit such a bill itself.
The Senate, a major counterweight?
The second uncertainty is directly linked to this last possibility: would the left-wing deputies vote for a law tabled by the National Rally, even on one of their flagship promises? Nothing is less certain. Still on France Inter this morning, when asked about potential partners within the chamber for this proposal, Mathilde Panot did not seem to want to take into account the votes of the 142 RN deputies. “We have never put a ballot paper for the far right, neither in the ballot boxes at the National Assembly, nor in the motions of censure that they tabled. We have never voted for one of the proposals that they had made,” insisted the president of the rebellious group at the Palais Bourbon.
“The National Rally has deputies, they will do what they want. But, today, including with right-wing deputies, Liot’s deputies, the 193 deputies of the New Popular Front, we have the majority to repeal this pension reform,” also assured Mathilde Panot. A numerical assertion contested by RN deputy Laurent Jacobelli this Tuesday: “This bill will not pass without the votes of the National Rally. […] “Your proposal will be accepted thanks to us, and you will have to say it loud and clear,” he proclaimed.
Finally, the third gray area: the behavior of the Senate. Controlled by the Republicans, it had voted for the pension reform in 2023. There is no doubt that it would therefore oppose such a repeal. If adopted by the Assembly, discussions would surely follow and a compromise would be very difficult to find between the two chambers of Parliament. Not to mention the behavior of a possible future government: if it did indeed come from a – still very hypothetical – alliance between the presidential camp and the Republicans, it would also do everything in its power to oppose the repeal of the 2023 reform.