While the parliamentary debate on pension reform has begun, a text could make it possible to launch a referendum on the subject. But the process looks complex.
This is the subject at the heart of current parliamentary discussions. The pension reform, which notably provides for a postponement of the retirement age to 64, is being debated by deputies and strongly contested in the streets by tens of thousands of French people. On the side of parliamentarians, discussions are heated with the government, which stubbornly defends its bill and does not intend to relent on the question of 64 years.
In this context, 7,003 amendments were tabled by MEPs, including 3,345 for the France insoumise group alone. All must be examined in the Social Affairs Committee… until Wednesday 1er february. A particularly tight deadline. It is then only from February 6 that all the deputies will be able to speak on the text, within the National Assembly. It will then be up to the government to find a majority in the hemicycle or to force through article 49.3. Unless another path opens up: that of the referendum.
First stage on February 6
Two political groups – the Nupes and the RN – have indeed tabled what is called a “referendum motion”. More simply, it is a proposal which, if it were to be voted on by the National Assembly, could suggest the possibility of the organization of a referendum on the subject. If the left alliance and the extreme right group are both opposed to the reform, a political war has, as always, occurred, both refusing to ally to carry only one text. If the motion of the Nupes should have been the one studied in the Assembly because it was tabled first, it is ultimately that of the RN which will be examined, after drawing lots. What arouse the ire of the left.
Anyway, Monday, February 6, 2023, all the deputies will have to vote to decide whether or not the process of a vote on the pension reform by referendum should be launched. For this, the motion must obtain a majority of votes. Does this have a chance of succeeding? It is unlikely that the deputies on the left will vote in favor of a text carried by the party of Marine Le Pen. The Communists, through the voice of their boss André Chassaigne, have already announced that they will not give their vote to the text of the RN, just like the environmentalists. For the time being, neither LFI nor the PS have given their position.
Macron last decision maker
If a combination of circumstances made it possible to pass the referendum motion, the latter would then be transmitted to the Senate, which should in turn issue a favorable opinion. Only in this case, the referendum proposal would then be transmitted to the President of the Republic. But he would remain completely free of his choice. In the case of a referendum motion, the work and the parliamentary vote do not definitively confirm the choice of the elected officials: it is Emmanuel Macron who would have the last word. It is then up to him to decide whether or not he wishes to call the French to the polls on this subject.