PENSION REFORM: The group of deputies various left and various right Liot has tabled a bill to repeal the postponement to 64 of the legal retirement age
- The pension reform was promulgated on April 15 by Emmanuel Macron.
- But the National Assembly, which was never able to decide during a vote on the text, could come back into the game.
- Fault or grace, it is according to the Liot group, will propose to repeal the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 during its parliamentary niche.
When there’s more, there’s more. Completed here more than a month after 49.3 and the motion of censure rejected by nine votes, the legislative course of pension reform could well start again. But how, when the law was signed into law by the president on April 15? With a new motion of censure?
The idea does not delight everyone, the fear of offering a victory to the government by collecting fewer votes than the last time is too strong. Perhaps then thanks to the “parliamentary niche” of the deputies of the small group Freedoms, independents, overseas and territories (Liot) . They tabled a bill to repeal the change from 62 to 64 as the legal retirement age.
Surprising Liot group
At this stage, remember two things. First, what is a “parliamentary niche”. Each year, each group in the Assembly (there are currently ten) is entitled to a day when it takes control of the agenda, which is almost exclusively reserved for the government elsewhere. That of the Liot group will take place on June 8, from 9 a.m. At midnight sharp, the carriage becomes a pumpkin again and the debates will be closed, whatever happens.
Then: what is the Liot group? It is a group of currently 20 deputies, politically located on the right and left edges of the macronie, but without being there. The main rule here: the freedom to vote, which appeals to a lot of independents and independents who are not necessarily comfortable with group discipline. But it also avoids, sometimes, having to ask the question of the political coherence of its votes. The group was surprised during the pension reform by being largely opposed to it, even though the vast majority of its members come from the right and centre-right.
And Liot could continue to surprise with this bill. The objective of Bertrand Pancher, the president of the group: is “To ensure that Parliament finally decides. The Meuse deputy even believes he can offer a “top exit” to the majority and the executive. Because the bill also contains the convening of a social conference on the financing of the pension system with the social partners. “We are finally going to allow the government to respect its commitments on its alleged new method”, we grit at Liot behind the scenes.
The temperature in the committee
The proposal in any case arouses the benevolence of all opponents of the pension reform, Nupes and RN included. At LFI too, therefore. However, this amounts to having the Assembly vote on the famous article 7 (now article 10, but let’s keep it simple), which the rebellious wanted to avoid at all costs during the examination of the text in the lower house, for fear of losing. “We take everything that is available to unravel the pension reform, even if we would also prefer to come back to the end of the specific schemes”, assures Hadien Clouet, deputy for Toulouse. He thinks that “things have moved” since February, that they are more favourable to a “winning” vote against the 64-year-olds. “Even the LRs have moved, what they sold for is not even in the text anymore.”
This is the hope of the promoters of the repeal: to seduce enough LR deputies when there is not much left of the deal they had made with the government in the text validated by the Constitutional Council. “Their attitude in committee will give us the temperature”, thinks the president of the socialist group, Boris Vallaud. If he does not predict the outcome of the vote, at Liot, we are optimistic. It must be said that, unlike the motion of censure, there, abstentions will count. What reduces the height of the march for opponents of the reform? Liot wants to take advantage of its central position to gather votes from all sides. A not neutral role in such a fragmented Assembly.
Faced with this prospect, “they are freaked out in macronie”, we are assured at Liot. It is also a safe bet that the majority will in turn use parliamentary obstruction to avoid any vote before midnight and the end of the parliamentary niche. “I hope that the relative majority will not make a fool of themselves like that,” said Bertrand Pancher. If they go a little on the ground, they will perhaps understand that they cannot prevent democracy from functioning permanently”. If this is the case, the idea of the motion of censure will again be on the table: “Nothing is to be excluded”, he continues. Boris Vallaud seems rather of his opinion.
In the event of a vote, there is no indication that the Senate, which is largely in favour of the reform, would do the same. But at Liot and on the left, we think more of the explosion that would ensue: “If the text is voted on in the Assembly, they won’t be able to say ‘move on, there’s nothing to do’. »
