The senators, mostly on the right, completed Tuesday the committee review of the highly controversial pension reform project. Several amendments were retained, in particular in favor of mothers and the employment of seniors.
The senators will now meet on Thursday afternoon for the kick-off of the debates in the hemicycle.
Deprived of a vote of the National Assembly by the obstruction of the deputies of La France insoumise, the executive counts on the Senate to confer democratic legitimacy on a reform which two thirds of the French (66%) do not want, d 'after an Odoxa survey.
The next day of mobilization, March 7, promises to be very popular and all the SNCF unions are calling for a renewable strike from this date.
The president of the Social Affairs Committee Catherine Deroche (LR), like the general rapporteur Elisabeth Doineau (centrist) and the rapporteur for the Old Age branch René-Paul Savary (LR), assume their responsibilities by supporting an unpopular reform. "This country is dying of reforms that are never made," said Ms. Deroche to the press, who wants "young people to be able to have a pay-as-you-go pension system that holds water".
The rapporteurs' amendments, presented in committee on Tuesday, will have to be voted on again in session, as required by the rule applicable to budgetary texts.
One, considered essential by the right, aims to grant a "surcharge" to mothers who have a full career.
The senators also propose a new CDI formula, exempt from family contributions, to facilitate the hiring of unemployed seniors.
The executive has multiplied in recent days the gestures of openness towards the right. "I hope that the Senate can enrich" the text, said Emmanuel Macron on Saturday at the Agricultural Show.
"We will listen to the proposals of the Senate and we will find a way together", abounded Monday Elisabeth Borne whose popularity rating shows a further drop of two points in February, to 29% according to the Odoxa poll.
The head of government also said she was ready, on Tuesday in Elle magazine, to study "bonuses" in wages for women "before the third child", a new hand extended to the Republicans.
The president of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau affirmed Monday, in an interview with AFP, that his group "will not be in the bidding". In the National Assembly, the government had a lot to do with the LR deputies, in particular Aurélien Pradié, since dismissed from his position as number 2 of the Republicans.
This does not prevent the deputy from Lot from remaining very virulent against his party, which he accused on France Inter of being "an accomplice of the government" in the debate on pensions.
The senatorial right can hardly change its mind by not voting for a reform that it has been calling for for several years.
Mr. Retailleau also announced that he would see the Prime Minister again on Wednesday with Gérard Larcher, the LR president of the Senate.
The deputies, embroiled in heated debates punctuated by repeated session incidents, were only able to fully examine two of the twenty articles of the text in two weeks.
It is therefore on the text of the government, barely modified, that the senators work.
LR and centrists recognize "differences" between them on certain subjects, such as long careers or special pension schemes, but are confident in their ability to "overcome" them.
The Senate has "a real card to play" in relation to the National Assembly by showing itself as "a responsible counterweight and respectful of sensitivities", it is underlined on the side of Petit Luxembourg, seat of the presidency of the Senate.
But, with nearly a hundred senators, the left intends to make its opposition heard. The three groups - PS, majority communist and environmentalist CRCE - will jointly present their strategy on Wednesday.
"We want the 20 articles of the law to be dealt with," socialist leader Patrick Kanner told Les Echos newspaper on Sunday.
The left alliance Nupes continues to multiply meetings. "We don't give up, we're here," chanted activists in Amiens on Monday evening.
In the street, the inter-union called "to seize March 8, the international day of struggle for women's rights, to denounce everywhere the major social injustice of this pension reform against women".
In the Senate, the debates will end on March 12. If at midnight, the senators have not voted on the entire text, it will still be sent to a joint joint committee, which brings together seven deputies and seven senators.
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02/28/2023 19:48:27 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
