The pension reform arrives at the National Assembly on January 30 and to animate the debates the Nupes has tabled thousands of amendments in addition to the rectifications tabled by the right and the majority. Will they succeed?
The National Assembly is preparing for heated debates. The pension reform arrives in the hemicycle on Monday January 30 and the political groups had until Thursday January 26 to submit their amendments to the bill. With debates limited to 50 days and only about twenty sessions in the Assembly, the deputies have revised the number of amendments tabled downwards. All the same, 7,241 alterations are proposed by the opposition forces. A significant number despite the abandonment of the strategy of obstruction first envisaged by elected leftists.
The Nupes is the author of the vast majority of the amendments with more than 6,200 modifications suggested to “have the time necessary to highlight the immense social regression imposed by this reform”, according to the members of the union of the left . Among them, the rebellious were the most prolific with more than 3,300 amendments against just over 1,200 in the camp of the ecologists and that of the socialists. Surprisingly, the presidential majority also tabled amendments to its own text, 185 in total.
While several texts aim to abolish the pension reform seen by Emmanuel Macron, others are proposals for alternatives and/or improvements to the bill to stick to the demands of the French and the unions who are firmly opposed to reform. What do the opposition politicians propose?
LR ready to vote on pension reform under conditions
The Republicans, first presented as supporters of the presidential majority to have the pension reform adopted, are no longer so unanimous on the bill. The elected representatives of the right have been campaigning for a long time to raise the legal retirement age, already in 2010 they were at the origin of the postponement of retirement to 62 years instead of 60 years. The strength of the protest led by the unions against the reform, however, seems to have eroded their certainties. Several LR deputies have said that they will not vote for the text as it stands. These and others have therefore tabled amendments with proposals such as: the permitted retirement of 63 years for workers who have worked since the age of 20 or the revaluation of retirement pensions to a minimum of 1,200 euros gross.
Olivier Marleix, president of the LR group in the Assembly, assured on January 23 on France info that all deputies will “always have the freedom to vote”, without a general instruction dictating the direction of their voice. In addition to the right, the center is making proposals to make pension reform fairer. The MoDem in particular, a member of the presidential majority, is campaigning for the addition of a quarter for women for each birth in order to try to counterbalance the phenomenon of chopped careers.
On the left, the Nupes against the pension reform multiplies the amendments
The pension reform revolts the political parties of the left. Of the approximately 6,200 amendments tabled, a large part is intended to defeat the pension reform deemed “deeply unfair” and “brutal”.
Some texts nevertheless aim to fuel the debate to improve pension reform. In this sense the PS has suggested several exceptions to the retirement age for so-called arduous trades such as movers, farmers and many others. Environmentalists have thought of a mechanism to allow all employees to retire before age 64. The other amendments tabled by the Communists and the rebellious relate to the retirement pension. The PCF wishes to bring it to the level of the Smic while LFI campaigns for an amount at least equal to 1,600 euros net for a full career.
- Insubordinate France (LFI) : LFI’s mentor, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, describes Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform as “serious social regression”. The party defends a completely different management of pensions and wishes to lower the legal retirement age earlier with a return to 60 years rather than a postponement to 64 years. Behind this position, the argument of the former deputy according to which “to live longer in dignified and healthy conditions, it is necessary to be able to stop working sufficiently early”. In addition to lowering the retirement age, the rebellious would like to lower the number of annuities from 43 to 40. Finally, according to him, it would be necessary to revalue the amount of retirement pensions at the level of the minimum wage and index pensions to wages. . This is a costly policy estimated at more than 70 billion euros per year which would be, still according to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, financed by the increase in the rate of old-age contribution and new contributions taken from “income from profit-sharing, participation, employee savings, as well as the financial income of companies”.
- The Socialist Party (PS) : the socialists who defended the status quo on the question of the retirement age at 62 aligned themselves with the return to 60 when the Nupes agreements were signed before the legislative elections of 2021. In one case as in the other, they oppose delaying retirement beyond age 62. As for the amount of pensions, there again many elected officials vote for a revaluation of pensions at the level of the minimum wage.
- Europe-ecology-The Greens (EELV) : on the question of pensions, ecologists agree on the retirement age and the amount of pensions. These elected officials also attach importance to taking hardship into account so that certain workers can stagger their retirement from the age of 55, in particular by broadening the criteria of hardship with the addition of four criteria removed by Emmanuel Macron in 2017 , which the same man now wants to reintegrate into the calculation, and additional factors.
- The French Communist Party (PCF) : the vision of the pensions for the communists it is the departure at 60 years and with full rate. A position diametrically opposed to that of Emmanuel Macron and justified by the analysis made by the CPF in 2021: “Pension expenditure has been revised downwards, […] studies indicate that today they are around 13.7%. The nuance (-0.3) is important, especially since the trajectories indicate that the share of pensions in GDP will continue to decline in the years to come.
The RN decided to unite against the pension reform
If the left is united and calls for “joining the inter-union” to fight the pension reform, it is not the only one. On the other side of the political spectrum, on the far right, the National Rally is also fiercely opposed to the government’s vision. On the age side, Marine Le Pen’s project consists of leaving the retirement age at 62 and allowing a “gradual” departure from the age of 60 for workers who started working before the age of 20. A project which costs 9.6 billion euros according to the boss of the RN and which could be financed largely by savings on expenses linked to unemployment insurance and health insurance. But after verification of the calculations by the Institut Montaigne, the cost of this measure is rather estimated at 26 billion euros.