Greeted by some applause on the right, the vote deferring the starting age from 62 to 64 was won by 201 votes to 115, out of 345 voters. “I am delighted that the debates made it possible to reach this vote”, tweeted Elisabeth Borne.
Silent since the beginning of the examination of the text, last Thursday, the senatorial majority has released on this article since last night the heavy artillery of the regulation to accelerate the debates in the face of the “obstruction” of the left. She was indignant at a “coup of force”.
Pension reform in France: a roaring street and hesitant majority deputies
“You are botching the debate”, “the so-called wisdom of the Senate has taken a hit”, criticized the leader of the Communist senators Eliane Assassi. “We will never accept that you mélenchonisiers the Senate,” retorted his Republican counterpart Bruno Retailleau.
The debates in the upper house will resume Thursday at 10:30 a.m. around a controversial amendment by Mr. Retailleau who pleads for the gradual extinction of special schemes, voted in article 2, to apply to employees already in office.
For its part, the inter-union, which wants to continue to put pressure with a new mobilization on Saturday and the multiplication of actions, asked to be received “urgently” by the Head of State “so that he withdraws his reform “.
Pension reform in France: the protest movement could harden
“The door of the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, always remains open”, replied the Prime Minister in the Senate on Wednesday, assuring that “the government is always ready and open to dialogue”, and that it is “in consultation and in the dialogue that this text was constructed”.
Earlier, government spokesman Olivier Véran had explained that the President of the Republic “respected the institutions (…) today, it is parliamentary time that is in progress”.
“It would be a mistake if the president received” the unions, which “want to re-personalize the debate around + for or against the president +”, estimated a government source. “The president doesn’t have to get into this.”
Dissensions
Emmanuel Macron, who had made reform a pillar of his presidential program, has remained in the background since his presentation in early January, leaving the Prime Minister and his government in the front line.
Elisabeth Borne is counting on a vote from the Republicans to avoid using 49.3 (adoption of a text without a vote), which would be perceived as a forceful passage. Especially since, by Olivier Véran’s own admission, the project “does not win the support of a majority of French people”.
Demonstration against pension reforms in Dijon on March 7, 2023
©AFP
This is why Emmanuel Macron will have to “reformulate a project for the country” and thus “open a new page” of the five-year term at the end of the pension reform, the president of the MoDem François Bayrou judged on Wednesday.
At LR, dissension persists, fueled by a meeting on Wednesday between MP Aurélien Pradié and CFDT leader Laurent Berger. The one who recently lost his number 2 status still refuses to vote as it stands for the text “which penalizes workers”.
Pension reform: unions ready to “bring France to a halt”
Will the majority be able to be united? Not to vote for the reform would be “unfair”, warned on FranceInfo the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, for the intention of recalcitrant macronist elected officials.
Women
The government thus hopes to quickly obtain a first victory with the vote by the upper house of the entire text by the deadline of Sunday. Should then follow a joint committee bringing together several senators and deputies.
If they agree on a text, the final adoption of the reform could take place on March 16.
The executive is also betting on a loss of steam in the social movement.
“France is not at a standstill” as promised by the unions and “we are very far from the record” that the unions “claim”, we relativized from a government source.
The unions took to the streets on Tuesday 1.28 million demonstrators according to the police, 3.5 million according to the CGT. But the rate of strikers remained below records, while the circulation of Parisian trains and metro improved on Wednesday.
Train traffic will still be “severely disrupted” on Thursday, according to the SNCF, but that of Parisian transport will improve, according to the RATP.
On Wednesday, smaller protests took place in connection with International Women’s Day.
Demonstration against the pension reform in Rennes, March 7, 2023
©AFP
“Those who will pay the most for this reform are the women who suffer the most from choppy careers and precarious contracts”, launched the leader of the Insoumis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon in Marseille.
According to the sectors, blockages were underway in several major ports according to the CGT. Roads were blocked and, partially, several educational establishments across the country.
The CGT-Chimie said that fuel shipments were still blocked at the exit of refineries, where the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, threatened to bring in the police.