The time for debate is over. "We have a compromise", hammered Élisabeth Borne, Tuesday in the National Assembly, during questions to the government. The day after the suspicious vote on the motion of censure, the Prime Minister tried to reunite the majority. The rest of the Hemicycle disagreed. The weekly session devoted to questioning ministers on current events turned into a succession of tirades linked directly or indirectly to pension reform. Baccalaureate 2023, insecurity in the country… the opposition deputies do not digest the passage in force of the executive.
“No dissolution, no reshuffle, no referendum. A participant in the meeting Tuesday morning bringing together the members of the majority and the head of state said that the president had no intention of changing his guideline. In Parliament, "Together" no longer wants to hear about pension reform. Asked about the position of the Head of State vis-à-vis the social and political situation, the MoDem deputy, Erwan Balanant, is looking for height. "With the mandate that has just passed and during the first year of the second, Emmanuel Macron has succeeded in a subject that no one has succeeded in until now: reviving the economy of our country despite the crises. In other words, move on, there's nothing left to see.
The future labor law, which should be presented in the spring, is already positioned in all the heads of the majority. “We have a paradox: an economy that is recovering, in a difficult world and context. We must raise the question of work in our country, raise the question of sharing the value and the challenges we have for our society," adds Erwan Balanant. The use of 49.3 on the pension reform obviously did not please the elected center left. "We are 577 pieces of France, we must with these 577 elected officials start working with the French on the sequence that opens", affirms the deputy MoDem, Richard Ramos. "We must above all listen to them because before we can explain something to someone, we start by listening. Now is the time to take a break and reshuffle the confidence,” he adds.
Constantly in search of a majority in Parliament, the three groups that make up the majority will once again have to seduce deputies, from the right and from the left. A position that is proving delicate in the aftermath of the pension reform. All the more on the left, while even the executives of the Socialist Party (PS) regularly castigate the executive. "This kind of unreasonable obstinacy, which makes the President of the Republic a lonely and entrenched man, risks ending badly," says PS MP leader Boris Vallaud. “He does not learn anything from this kind of major industrial, democratic and institutional accident that is the pension reform,” he adds.
Asked about the subject on Wednesday from the Élysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron tried more to chart a course towards the reforms to come. If the National Rally and the Nupes have filed an appeal with the Sages of rue de Montpensier, Elisabeth Borne has grilled priority. A few hours after the rejection of the motions of censure on Monday, the Prime Minister decided to "seize directly" the Constitutional Council. Thanks to article 61.3 of the Constitution, the period for examining the text could even be reduced to eight days. It is up to the Elders to put the pension reform on the shelf for good.
Consult our file: Pensions: the big bang
