Vote for, against, or bury your head in the sand… What was the choice of your deputy to the National Assembly in the face of the most emblematic (or the most boiling) reforms of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term? Linternaute offers you to take stock elected by elected…
Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term was marked by several major crises which hampered his reform ambitions, but the Head of State and the government had parliamentarians adopt a certain number of important measures. Bills, issued directly by deputies, have also made it possible to change legislation. While the elected officials of the Palais Bourbon are ending their mandate and the legislative elections are approaching, Linternaute.com invites you to come back to the main texts adopted – or not – by the National Assembly.
We have selected 17 reforms, which we can consider as the most significant of Emmanuel Macron’s first 5 years in power: the major reform of the labor code, the law on the moralization of public life, the reform of the SNCF, the transformation of the ISF, the reform of the baccalaureate, the law establishing a vaccination pass, PMA for all, the Asylum and immigration law, the so-called “Separatism” law, the reform of unemployment insurance, the Climate and resilience law, the Ségur de la Santé, the postponement of the ban on glyphosate, the reduction of employee contributions, the abolition of the housing tax, the rest at zero charge on health costs and the abortive reform of the pension system.
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Methodology used
First or second reading, joint committee… Behind the passing of a law, several realities
The development of legislative work in France takes on a certain complexity: a law emerges from a proposal by elected officials or, more often, from a project presented by the government. The deputies develop the texts, by amendments, and these, in normal procedure, are subject to examination by the parliamentarians of the Senate. The bill or the proposal of law is adopted when it is voted in the same terms by the two assemblies. But the senators can in turn amend the text voted on at first reading by the deputies. Texts can be voted on after one or two round trips between the National Assembly and the Senate, at the end of the “shuttle” between the two chambers (in second reading vote) or else be the result of work carried out in committee mixed parity, ie by a delegation of deputies and senators meeting to find a consensus (after the first or after the second reading).
It is possible that the government, to speed up the procedure, resorts to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, to have a text adopted without a vote of the deputies – but in return it exposes itself to a vote of no confidence, which, if reaches majority, pushes him to resign. A law can also be the subject of a referral to the Constitutional Council by a group of at least 59 deputies, thus temporarily blocking its proclamation.
Another element to bear in mind, certain emblematic measures of a government’s action can be integrated into broader bills, such as “finance bills” or “social security financing bills” , which set the budgets allocated each year to State missions. A measure can also be the subject of ordinances, that is to say texts directly drafted by the government, without having to be the subject of a text of law, but their adoption is conditioned by the vote of an “enabling law” by the deputies.
What are the votes retained by Linternaute?
Given the complexity of drafting laws, for each measure we have selected the text that has reached the end of the process: it may be a first reading vote if there has only been one reading , a vote at second reading, a first finance bill or an amending finance bill, or even the text of the joint committee validated by the deputies. In the event that the Prime Minister uses Article 49.3, which happened on the pension reform before it was abandoned due to the health crisis, we have chosen to study the ballot on motions of censure, that is- that is to say votes of no confidence organized by the opposition to decide on a resignation from the government.
Each selected ballot is available via the list below. The links refer to the exhaustive reports of the vote, archived by the services of the National Assembly. It should be noted that each ballot takes into account the voters (“for”, “against” and “abstention”) as well as the “non-voters”. Deputies who do not appear in the minutes are indicated as “absent”.
- Reform of the labor code : the deputies have ratified all the ordinances taken by the government at the start of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate. These have introduced fixed-term contracts modulated by branch, “project” permanent contracts, the merger of representative bodies, the capping of industrial tribunal compensation, the increase in severance pay.
- Law of moralization of public life : the law prohibits members of the government, parliamentarians and elected local executives from employing members of their immediate family. The law also abolishes the “parliamentary reserve”. The mandate expenses of deputies and senators are reimbursed only on presentation of supporting documents. The law also prohibits people who are neither French citizens nor residents of France from “participating in the financing of political life”.
- SNCF reform : this law declares the opening to competition of passenger transport on French rails, and abolishes the status of railway worker with all its advantages for hires made after January 2020.
- Transformation of the ISF : the law excludes banking and financial investments as well as cash from wealth tax. The government justified this change by ensuring that it would boost investment in French companies and job creation.
- Baccalaureate reform : the law abolished the three general streams to set up a system of specialties, the reduction of the final exams to four subjects, the others being assessed in continuous assessment.
- Law establishing a vaccination pass : the law has “strengthened the tools for managing the health crisis” and “modified the public health code”, by imposing a complete vaccination course to access many services and places of leisure.
- PMA for all : the law establishes medically assisted procreation (AMP), which now allows a couple made up of two women or a single woman to have a child.
- Motions of censure tabled against the pension reform (motion LR and BIA motion): the government has not gone to the end of its pension reform project, providing for a universal points system, with an age of opening of the right to retirement set at 62 years. Several articles of an “ordinary” bill were adopted (law relating to specific reform measures), before the government resorted to Article 49.3 of the Constitution to speed up the process. This appeal provoked motions of censure from opposition groups. An “organic” bill (specifying the organization of the public authorities to implement the reform) was adopted, but the entire procedure was interrupted due to the pandemic.
- Asylum and Immigration Law : this law reduced the average processing time for asylum applications from 11 to 6 months, by shortening application and examination times. Asylum seekers are no longer free to fix their domicile or move around in France without the agreement of the Office of Immigration and Integration. The law increases the legal duration of detention in a detention centre, the detention of children is possible. The law includes provisions to promote the immigration of the most qualified.
- Separatism Law : the law establishes a “crime of separatism” qualified by violence or threats “to obtain an exemption or a differentiated application of the rules of the public service”. Associations that apply for a public subsidy must sign a charter and “respect the secular character and the principles of the Republic”. To stem the phenomenon of recruitment of children, schooling becomes compulsory from the age of 3, the instruction of a child in the family becomes “derogatory”.
- Unemployment insurance reform : the reform makes the unemployment allowance for the wealthiest degressive (up to -30%), introduces a new – less favorable – method of calculating the allowance. The reform also penalizes companies that favor short contracts over permanent contracts, and establishes a minimum duration of affiliation to benefit from unemployment.
- Climate and Resilience Law : the law puts in place many measures (350 articles) to “bring ecology into the lives of the French”. Among the most important: ban on renting poorly insulated accommodation, end of sale of the most polluting cars in 2030, ban on domestic flights in the event of an alternative by train of less than 2h30 in 2024, stricter supervision of advertising , support for renewable energies, creation of an ecocide offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
- Segur of Health : the agreements, signed by the government and by a majority of trade unions, and whose provisions have been validated by Parliament provide for: 7.6 billion euros per year to increase the remuneration of all paraprofessional in health establishments, the recruitment of 15,000 personnel; 450 million euros per year for public hospital medical practitioners, 200 million euros per year for trainees and interns; the creation of 4,000 beds on demand; reduction in the share of T2A, the “activity-based pricing” in the financing of hospitals.
- Call for an immediate ban on glyphosate : the bill, filed by France Insoumise on November 30, 2021, was simply formulated as follows: “The use of plant protection products containing the active substance glyphosate is prohibited on national territory”. The deputies rejected the text, by adopting an amendment to delete the single article of this text, carried by the LREM group. The presidential majority considered that the deadlines provided were too short, for lack of an alternative to glyphosates for farmers.
- Lower employee contributions : article 7 of the 2018 finance law incorporated a reduction in employee contributions of 3.2 points, and an increase in the CSG for retirees (finally abolished for the most modest retirees).
- Abolition of housing tax : the finance law for 2020 abolishes the housing tax for all French people in 2023, the majority had abolished the housing tax for 80% of the most modest French people in 2018.
- Remains at zero charge on health costs : this reform voted in the 2019 Social Security financing law allows the full reimbursement of certain glasses, dental prostheses and hearing aids.