They hold the fate of pension reform in their hands. The nine members of the Constitutional Council will deliver their decision on the bill on Friday, April 14. The spotlight is on the discreet institution, which must put an end to the suspense “at the end of the day”: will the Elders censor the reform? Only a part? Will they give the green light to the procedure of a referendum of shared initiative (RIP), dear to the left?
The members of the Constitutional Council are appointed for nine non-renewable years (a third every three years), by the presidents of the Assembly and the Senate and by the Head of State, which fuels criticism. The mandate of judges is non-renewable and incompatible with any other political mandate. L’Express presents the nine Sages who will deliver their verdict on Friday.
Laurent Fabius
The Constitutional Council has been chaired by Laurent Fabius since March 8, 2016. In 1983, he was minister to François Mitterrand when he retired from retirement at age 60. In 2010, he opposed a two-year decline in the starting age wanted by Nicolas Sarkozy.
Member of Parliament for Seine-Maritime at 31, then the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic in 1984 at 37, the now 76-year-old enarque also chaired the National Assembly twice and led the PS. In 2005, he had pulled off a political coup by opposing the European Constitution in a referendum, but he did not convert the test the following year during the socialist primary against Ségolène Royal. Appointed to the Quai d’Orsay in 2012 by François Hollande, he achieved his greatest international success with the Paris Climate Accords in 2015.
He is credited with a statutory, institutional relationship with Emmanuel Macron, 30 years his junior. Between the two men, no complicity or companionship. Will he react only as a jurist in this institution where politicians are asked to state the law? Will he want to mark French political history with a resounding decision?
The current President of the Constitutional Council did not go to China with Emmanuel Macron, from April 5 to 8. Busy deciding on the future of pension reform, the former Prime Minister was nevertheless expected to travel. But it was hard to imagine the President of the Constitutional Council side by side with the Head of State in China a few days before the verdict of the Elders of rue de Montpensier.
On January 13, in front of a few journalists, Laurent Fabius warned the government, as the reports the JDD : “We do not want any misuse of procedure. We will refer to the sincerity of the parliamentary debate.” “Anything that is outside the financial field can be considered a budgetary rider, and in this case, a second text would be needed”, warned the former minister at the time. chained duck. He cited the “senior index” and the “difficulty criteria” which “do not fall under the PLFRSS”.
Alain Juppe
History is sometimes not lacking in irony. In 1995, Alain Juppé, Prime Minister RPR, had to bury his pension reform under pressure from the street. Almost 30 years later, Alain Juppé is a member of the Constitutional Council and must rule on Emmanuel Macron’s reform… without taking social protest into account.
The former mayor (RPR, UMP then LR) of Bordeaux was appointed to everyone’s surprise in 2019 on the proposal of the President of the National Assembly at the time, Richard Ferrand, a close friend of Emmanuel Macron. He had replaced another former Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. Previously, Alain Juppé had been an unsuccessful presidential candidate, beaten in the 2016 right-wing primary.
Jacqueline Gourault
His appointment desired by Emmanuel Macron in February 2022, coupled with a lack of legal training, had been singled out by some of the opposition.
This close friend of the president of the MoDem François Bayrou is a history and geography teacher by training. Senator without interruption from 2001 to 2017, she figured during the first five-year term of “Madame Local Authorities”, earning the nickname of “dealing agent” of the government with elected officials. Minister since 2017, Jacqueline Gourault had claimed to be “ready to make (her) moult” at the dawn of entering the Constitutional Council for a period of nine years.
Jacques Mezard
Before her, Emmanuel Macron had named among the Sages in 2019 another former Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Jacques Mézard. At 71, he joined the Constitutional Council six months after being dismissed from the government in October 2018. This former senator from Cantal was a long time member of the Radical Left Party and then of the Radical Movement.
The other five members
Three other members (François Seners in 2022, Michel Pinault in 2016, François Pillet in 2019) were installed by the current President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher. Magistrate Véronique Malbec was installed by Richard Ferrand in 2022. Finally, Corinne Luquiens was appointed in 2016 by Claude Bartolone, Richard Ferrand’s socialist predecessor at the Hôtel de Lassay.
In addition, former Heads of State are members of the Constitutional Council by right for life. Since the death of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 2020, however, no former President of the Republic has sat there. Nicolas Sarkozy attended only a few months in 2012-2013 and François Hollande never sat there. Emmanuel Macron does not intend to do so after his presidential term either.