With a majority in the hemicycle, the left and the RN failed on Thursday, November 29 to pass a law proposing to repeal the pension reform, in the face of obstruction from the presidential camp, to which rebellious France has never stopped promising censorship next week, in a particularly tense atmosphere. “The macronie is over and […] the first vote to really repeal the retirement reform at 64 is next Wednesday, during the censorship which will allow both to bring down the Barnier government but also to undo this retirement at 64 which no one wants.” reacted to the press the president of the LFI group, Mathilde Panot, at the end of the debates.
La France insoumise had placed at the top of the texts of its “parliamentary niche” – the annual day reserved for its texts -, a bill aimed at repealing the 2023 reform which raised the legal retirement age from 62 at 64 years old. But the text could not be voted on, due to hundreds of amendments tabled by the government coalition in order to slow down the work which necessarily had to end at midnight, and heated debates marked by multiple points of order and suspensions of sessions. .
Symbolic victory
The leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen, whose group had proposed a similar text during its “niche” on October 31, denounced on an arm of honor to the democratic debate”. But she also attacked the left, which had refused to vote for the RN text, “out of pure sectarianism”.
At the end of the afternoon, the supporters of repeal won a symbolic victory: they rejected by 241 votes to 100 the amendments by which their colleagues from the government “base” wanted to empty the text of its substance. This “stinging defeat for the presidential camp” proves that “there is a majority in the Assembly and in the country for repeal,” LFI MP Clémence Guetté said on X.
Incident
Tension rose crescendo in the hemicycle throughout the day, culminating around 10 p.m. with an incident caused by MoDem deputy Nicolas Turquois, who came to complain to a socialist deputy about the threats and insults received by his family because of his opposition to pension reform. “My family was threatened! And these are people from your village!”, Nicolas Turquois reportedly told Mickaël Bouloux, according to Le Figaro. The first would also have attacked the LFI Antoine Léaument, who claimed on BFMTV : “Without the intervention of the bailiffs, he would have given me one.” The president of the MoDem group Marc Fesneau intervened, as well as ushers, before Nicolas Turquois left the hemicycle. Images shared on social networks by rebellious deputies show the elected official being escorted out of the Assembly.
The left-wing deputies have continued to denounce the obstructionism of the Macronist camp, criticizing “unworthy sabotage” or “thug methods”. And they have sworn to take their revenge on Wednesday, by bringing down the government… if the RN decides. Prime Minister Michel Barnier could decide on Monday to trigger 49.3 to have the Social Security budget adopted without a vote in the Assembly, exposing himself to a motion of censure from the left, and which the National Rally threatens to vote on.
19,000 amendments tabled by the left in 2023
The Macronists had a good time recalling that the Insoumis had themselves done everything to avoid a vote, during the examination of the pension reform in 2023. “It was you who at the time wanted to block the debates , prevent votes!” exclaimed Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin, observing that the “a few hundred amendments” to be examined on Thursday were nothing compared to the 19,000 tabled by the left in 2023. Basically, “the responsibility is not to come back to unravel what had made it possible to balance the accounts”, he insisted. The left wants to open “the floodgates and the machine of illusory promises”, castigated its colleague in charge of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet.
Rapporteur of the text, LFI deputy Ugo Bernalicis promised to the press that the text would return to the hemicycle, inviting another NFP group to “take it back”. “What is certain is that this reform will be repealed, the question is just when,” he insisted.