Like an air of deja vu. This Wednesday, May 3, the Constitutional Council will deliver its verdict on a request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP), made by left-wing parliamentarians. It aims to prevent pushing back the legal retirement age beyond 62 years. This is the second such request, the first having been rejected last month.
Will the second try be the right one? Unfortunately for the opposition, there is little chance that the Council will give the green light. The unions are also very cautious on the eve of the decision: the boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, believes in it “more or less” while, for the new general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet, “the RIP has was written not to work”. The RIP request must meet very specific conditions. It must first be supported by a fifth of parliamentarians, or at least 185: this is the case for this one, carried by 252 deputies and senators.
The Elders then check whether the project complies with Article 11 of the Constitution. For this, it must not provide for “the repeal of a legislative provision promulgated for less than a year”, and must relate to “the organization of public powers, on reforms relating to economic, social or environmental policy of the nation and the public services that contribute to it, or the authorization to ratify a treaty which, without being contrary to the Constitution, would have an impact on the functioning of the institutions”.
Few hopes for the second version
This last point posed a problem during the examination of the first application. The Elders considered that it did not constitute a “reform” within the meaning of Article 11. “At that time, retirement was still set at 62 years”, explains to L’Express Didier Maus, specialist in law constitutional. “And since the Council assessed the admissibility of the proposal on the date it was submitted, it did not work.”
This time, the parliamentarians decided to add an article to their second version. The first still concerns the prohibition of a legal retirement age above 62 years. The second proposes a tax revenue to secure the financing of the pension system. However, this change is unlikely to make a difference. “What counts is the first article, recalls Didier Maus. And if the first article falls, the second will follow.”
The forecasts are not very optimistic. Not to mention that even in the event of a positive response, the RIP will not be for tomorrow. He will still have to collect 4.8 million signatures from citizens (ie 10% of the electorate) in the space of nine months. Their validity will be verified by the Board. Then, Parliament will have six months to examine the bill, and if it does not, Emmanuel Macron will call a referendum.
Because of the complexity of this procedure, no RIP has yet been organized since its creation in 2008. Only one proposal has passed the stage of the Constitutional Council: a request for RIP against the privatization of Aéroports de Paris, which does not ultimately did not collect enough signatures.