The French Constitutional Council will say this Friday, April 14 if it considers in conformity with the Constitution, all or part of the bill reforming pensions, adopted by Parliament via 49.3. From total censorship to the validation of the text, what options are concretely on the table? What about opponents of government reform?
What will the Sages say? Government, opposition and unions are suspended from their decision. Validate completely? Censor part of the text? Or more hypothetical, reject it outright?
The Constitutional Council must also announce whether it validates the shared initiative referendum tabled by 252 parliamentarians opposed to the pension reform.
For Didier Maus, president emeritus of the French Association of Constitutional Law, the two files are independent. ” There are absolutely not the same arguments in the two cases, he said. They are two completely different procedures. But politically, there is obviously a link for public opinion. »
For the oppositions on the left, validating the text as it would be a political decision and the Sages would be on the side of Emmanuel Macron. An unfounded accusation, according to Didier Maus.
” A certain number of people have an interest in saying that, it is obvious. Personally, I don’t think so, because the Constitutional Council will repeat what it says in each important decision, which is that it does not have a power of general appreciation equal to that of Parliament. It is not an elected body, it is an appointed body. He does not represent national sovereignty, he represents the Constitution and the rule of law, and therefore he does not have to take into account the political arguments of one or the other. »
The constitutional judge is a peacemaker. He doesn’t have to worry about the fact that there will be demonstrations in the street or that there have been, that’s not his problem at all.
Didier Maus, constitutionalist
The question of the shared initiative referendum
The government calls on oppositions and unions to respect the decision of the Elders even if it does not go in their direction. But whatever the decision of the Constitutional Council, opposition and unions have no intention of stopping their mobilization.
In the Nupes, in particular, we do not intend to give up the battle and we place part of our hopes in the referendum of shared initiative aiming at the reform, on which the Council must also tatuer. Especially since the total censorship of the text, they don’t really believe in it anymore.
” Whatever the decision, the people who are here are not fighting because the law is unconstitutional, considers Mathilde Panot, president of the LFI group in the National Assembly. They are there because this law is unfair. And so, regardless of the decision, they will continue one way or another. »
►Read also: Pensions in France: 380,000 demonstrators according to Beauvau, 1.5 million for the CGT
The pressure must therefore be maintained on Emmanuel Macron, also judges the former environmentalist presidential candidate, Yannick Jadot: “ It crushes social democracy. It humiliates parliamentary democracy. Whatever its legality, you can clearly see that it no longer has the legitimacy to support this project. So he withdraws it. »
And to keep pensions at the heart of public debate, what better than the nine months of campaigning that the shared initiative referendum would allow? Fabien Roussel, from the Communist Party: “ This referendum is a democratic way and it is the best there can be. It’s not the coup, it’s not the insurrection, it’s not violence, it’s not radicalism, it’s democracy. »
Far from the microphones, the left-wing leaders display a worried expression, fearing unpredictable reactions from the street, if the Council were to validate the reform and reject the RIP.
Note that a second RIP proposal on the reform was tabled in the Senate on Thursday afternoon. Legal experts close to Nupes believed that elements of the first text filed were imprecise. The Constitutional Council may therefore have to rule a second time.
In the street, a mobilization down this Thursday
Mobilization was down on Thursday. They were 380,000 to pound the pavement in the country, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The CGT claimed 1.5 million demonstrators, against two million the previous week.
But even less numerous, the opponents to this reform and in particular to the raising of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years old remained determined.
We cultivate hope. Now, we don’t believe the masses, huh!
At the end of the street that leads to the Constitutional Council, manages with hope