Republicans are suffering from acute meetingitis. The right-wing deputies exchanged Tuesday and Wednesday in a group meeting on pension reform. At the end of the second – which followed a meeting between the boss of the LR group Olivier Marleix and Elisabeth Borne – the decision was made to organize a third meeting next Monday. The right is struggling to tune its violins on this major reform of the quinquennium, with blurred outlines. The presentation of the government copy, initially scheduled for Thursday, December 15, has been postponed to January 10. Emmanuel Macron advocates a postponement of the legal age of departure to 65, when his Prime Minister seems open to a postponement to 64 accompanied by an extension of the contribution period.
On the right, the quest for a common position is akin to the search for the philosopher’s stone. The group meeting turned sour on Tuesday. Olivier Marleix and Aurélien Pradié hung on in front of their peers. The first is in favor of an age measure, while the second wants to play on the contribution period. “We have the right to express divergent points of view in a meeting,” said the deputy of Lot, annoyed by the tone of his group president. “If we can’t find a common position on the subject, there’s no point in being an LR group”, we laugh internally.
65 years old is a no!
A necessity for the right. An obligation for the executive. The government needs the voices of the right to pass its reform, rejected en bloc by the National Rally (RN) and the Nupes. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne knows that LR has the key. She maintains cordial relations with Olivier Marleix and the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau, sensitive to her sense of dialogue. But the head of government notes in private a “polyphony” of the right on pensions. At first glance, nothing new: the LR group is more an aggregate of individuals than a homogeneous block. These 62 survivors owe their election to their local roots and were not carried by a campaign and a national program. They are independent, therefore free to display their differences.
But the melodies heard by the Prime Minister are not incoherent. Forgot Valérie Pécresse’s program! Nettles, LR’s presidential project unveiled at the start of the 2021 school year! With the exception of a handful of Macron-compatible deputies (Nicolas Forissier, Jean-Louis Thiériot, etc.), a clear majority of the LR group opposes a postponement of the legal age of departure to 65.
The measure is considered too brutal in the economic context. Olivier Marleix even brandished the threat of a motion of censure if the executive dug this furrow. The government will have to deal with a curious partner, an unprecedented “left wing”. Don’t tell these deputies that they lack consistency, they don’t care! None feel bound by the presidential program of the right. “How many in the group have pledged to their voters to go to the fire over 65 years? How many have displayed the party to be elected deputy? The parliamentary group is not the party”, confides the deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle Thibault Bazin, summarizing a very shared feeling.
Sociological shift
A leftist right? This development has several causes. These deputies observe how much the relationship to work has changed over the past several years. The Covid has regenerated teleworking, companies are adopting the four-day week, professional retraining is increasing. “We have gone from ‘working more to earn more’ to ‘working better to live better’. We must take this into account”, assures the deputy of the Loire Antoine Vermorel-Marques.
The right wants to move with the times. She also wants to live in harmony with her constituents. LR deputies often come from rural and popular constituencies, hostile to reform. The elderly and prosperous electorate has already gone to Emmanuel Macron. The LR group has almost no deputies from large cities or Ile-de-France. This sociological shift affects its positioning. “We look more and more like the radical party, mocks a deputy. A party of large local elected officials, who defend their steak, their constituencies and have less ambition to have a majority collective adventure.” Finally, part of the right has little desire to be the crutch of an unpopular project.
Reform is yes. 65 years old is no. The right, on the other hand, is unable to agree on the rest. Some remain attached to a measure of age. Olivier Marleix thus proposes a postponement to 63 years of age by the end of the five-year term to guarantee social acceptability. Other deputies, led by Aurélien Pradié, refuse any postponement and want to play on the contribution period, a track deemed socially fairer.
Subtle fracture line
These elected officials make this inflection a way to reconnect with the popular strata and put an end to the right of “punishment”. “To make this strategic and ideological break, you have to take a subject that speaks to all French people and explain our evolution, slips a deputy. When the RN changes its position on the euro, the French said to themselves: ‘they understood something’. It’s the same here.” These elected officials are not alone. Laurent Wauquiez privately believes that age measurement belongs to the past century.
Subtle line of fracture. It lies in the degree of opposition to the reform envisaged by the Head of State more than between pro and anti-Macron. Between followers of a compromise if the government moves and firm opponents. A struggle for influence wins the LR group. Each camp is counted and wants to be the majority. For lack of consensus, the right speaks as much to itself as to the executive. Hence these incessant group meetings.
Hurry up. The government project will be presented on January 10, after the holidays. In the entourage of Olivier Marleix, we do not despair of convincing elected officials hostile to a postponement of the legal age. The idea: to emphasize other aspects of the reform, such as long careers, arduous work or the accumulation of pensions. A way to combine financial responsibility and social credentials. At the end of Wednesday’s meeting, an anti-reporting deputy confided: “The challenge is that the age measurement is not the central measurement. To see how we imagine something new on the subject. That’s all work to be done.” Thus, a working group was set up to sharpen the skills of parliamentarians on a very technical subject. “The group is acculturated on the subject,” laments one of them.
First test for Ciotti
A straight line is a very distant horizon. Macron-compatible deputies will not fail to make their little music heard in the debate. “We should not seek for tactical reasons to find a good reason not to vote for this reform. If we do not hold our line, we will pay the price”, mocks Nicolas Forissier. Proponents of this line recall that the Senate has voted each year an amendment to the PLFSS providing for a postponement of the retirement age to 64 and an acceleration of the Touraine reform on the duration of contributions. On the right, divisions also exist between the assemblies.
A man plays big in this case: Eric Ciotti. The pension reform will be a test for the new boss of LR. The deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes set a series of conditions to vote for the reform, such as the increase in small pensions or the consideration of hardship. Formerly defender of a postponement of the legal age to 65, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes now advocates a system with two cursors, leaving the choice between a departure at 65 or the extension of the contribution period. He may not be the hardest to convince. In private, the man believes that a reformist speech can bring voters who have gone to Macron back to LR. “The Pradié line does not bring these voters back to us,” he confided in private this summer. A double verdict is near: the parliamentary right will weigh itself and Eric Ciotti will measure his authority over the group.