The Senate with a right-wing majority is expected to enter the hard part of pension reform on Friday evening, with an expected debate on the extinction of special plans. The social standoff is already tense: a renewable strike has begun in the energy sector.
The movement among electricians and gas workers started Friday with cuts in electricity production in several nuclear power plants to protest against "the debate which is opening in the Senate" on special regimes, announced the CGT.
These reductions in production, closely supervised by the manager of the high and very high voltage line network RTE, generally do not lead to cuts for customers.
In the hemicycle, after the rejection in the morning of a request for a referendum carried by the left, the discussions resumed at the end of the afternoon at a senator's pace and will continue all weekend.
"We will not take the bad potion that you want to give us", warned the socialist Laurence Rossignol: this reform is "9 volumes of vinegar for a volume of glucose, not even syrup".
The senators began with the introductory article on the forecasts of deficit, still not voted after more than three hours of discussion because of the many interventions of the left. Socialist Victorin Lurel criticized his right-wing colleagues for being "a little drowsy".
The debate was brightened when the communist Eliane Assassi got entangled in the articles of the regulations. "Yesterday you invented one for us (article, editor's note), the place is for the imagination", joked the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher (LR), his eye riveted on the clock to enforce speaking times .
The exchanges are likely to become tense in the evening, then on Saturday, when the senators will address the first article on the gradual disappearance of the special regimes of the RATP, the electricity and gas industries, the Banque de France or the clerks and employees of notaries. .
The left opposes their removal.
And, while the government's project provides for their disappearance only for future recruits, the head of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, wants them to be abolished for current employees as well.
He tabled an amendment to this effect, which will however not be examined before the debate on article 7 of the reform: the flagship measure of the text postponing the legal retirement age to 64 years.
"My amendment proposes convergence (between the regimes, editor's note) until 2040, there is nothing brutal while for all French people, from September 1, the reform will gradually begin to apply", argues he.
The government is against it and the Retailleau amendment could be rejected, for lack of support from the centrists.
The Senate has until March 12 at midnight to try to complete the first reading of the 20 articles of the text and the nearly 4,000 amendments.
With in everyone's mind on March 7, a great day of mobilization against the reform, during which the inter-union calls for France to be "shut down".
According to police sources, the intelligence services expect between 1.1 and 1.4 million demonstrators in France on Tuesday, including 60,000 to 90,000 in Paris. In the capital, the procession will parade from Sèvres-Babylone to Place d'Italie. 320 rallies are planned across France, according to another police source.
A sign of the major disruptions to be expected, the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune called on Friday all French people who can to telecommute. The transport operator Ile-de-France Mobilités has announced that it will offer carpooling to passengers registered on certain platforms.
On the eve of this strike, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will speak on France 5 in the program "C à vous".
On Friday morning, senators unsurprisingly largely rejected, by 251 votes to 93, a request for a referendum brought by the left, a rare procedure in the Senate, where the last referendum motion dated back to 2014.
"Common sense is to withdraw this reform, failing to have the courage to present it to the French," said the head of PS senators Patrick Kanner.
In response, Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt defended the "legitimacy" of "representative democracy and Parliament.
03/04/2023 00:19:07 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
