Bis repeated. The Constitutional Council rejected, this Wednesday, May 3, the second request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP) on pensions, carried by the left. Unsurprisingly, the Elders judged that the proposal did not meet the required criteria. The left is betting on a next step in the National Assembly on June 8, the day of examination of a bill from the independent group Liot to repeal the reform.
The Council considered in particular that the request for a referendum “does not relate, within the meaning of Article 11 of the Constitution, to a reform relating to social policy”, which is the main point that it had to verify.
The second RIP was initiated in extremis on April 13 by some 250 left-wing and independent deputies and senators. In a press release, all the political formations of Nupes said they regretted that the Constitutional Council had not “allowed the French people to speak directly after the government refused to listen to all the trade union organizations and to make vote the representatives of the people in the National Assembly”.
On April 14, the Constitutional Council, under the leadership of Laurent Fabius, validated most of the pension reform, including the postponement of the legal age to 64, and rejected a first request for RIP. The law was enacted in stride by Emmanuel Macron, but the battle continued.
Still united after 12 days of mobilizations, the inter-union organized a “combative” May 1st which brought together 800,000 people according to the police and 2.3 million according to the CGT, but was marked by violence. A new day of mobilization is scheduled for Tuesday, June 6.