On Wednesday, MP LR Aurélien Pradié still castigated the pension reform carried out by the executive, denouncing “the Macron method”, the “fracking method”. The one who places himself as a herald of a popular right accused the government in particular of having resorted to article 47.1 of the Constitution which limits the time for legislative debates, in order to create “parliamentary tension, tension in the country”. A new firm position that ended up costing him his place as number 2 of the Republicans.
This Saturday, the leader of the party Les Républicains Éric Ciotti, who supports the reform, has indeed announced to dismiss the deputy LR. “His repeated positions (were) no longer in line with the values of coherence, unity and unity which must guide the Republican right”, justified the boss of the LRs in a press release, denouncing a “personal adventure” which “cannot replace collective action and the spirit of responsibility”.
Long careers, the point of tension
The crisis had been brewing for weeks and broke out the day after the end of the tumultuous review of the reform at the Palais Bourbon. While Eric Ciotti and Olivier Marleix, leader of the LR group in the Assembly, have been supporting the government’s pension reform project for weeks, which would raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, Aurélien Pradié, who occupied the position of executive vice-president of the party (and had before that run for the presidency of the party in front of Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau) openly conditions his support for the reform on strict progress on the device of long careers.
“What I want is that we defend the workers, that this reform is fair, that it does not always hit the same people, that is to say those who work in our country. That is my compass!” , he explained on Wednesday. The MP for Lot intends to obtain strict assurances from the government that anyone who enters the labor market before the age of 21 can retire at the full rate after having contributed 43 annual installments, without the legal retirement age constitutes a barrier.
If the government seemed to take a step in this direction on several occasions, first by declarations by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, then by remarks in the hemicycle of Olivier Dussopt, Aurélien Pradié like other LR deputies have considered that the guarantees provided by the executive did not completely rule out the possibility for certain people with long careers of having to contribute 44 years. “The only fate that matters is that of the French for whom we are committed. Convictions, it is defended. Relentlessly”, tweeted Aurélien Pradié on Saturday, a few minutes after the publication of the LR press release.