Un turning point of the five-year term following three months of crisis? The Constitutional Council validated most of the pension reform, including the postponement of the legal age to 64, while nevertheless censoring six secondary provisions of the text and also blocking a first request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP ) from the left.
The emblematic measure of this controversial reform, the gradual postponement of the legal retirement age to 64, will therefore have the force of law as soon as Emmanuel Macron has promulgated the text.
The institution of the rue de Montpensier, on the other hand, without much surprise censured several “social riders” who “had no place in the referred law”, of a financial nature. Among these: the index on the employment of seniors, which was to be compulsory from this year for companies with more than 1,000 employees, and whose non-publication was to be liable to financial penalties. Also censored, the CDI seniors, an addition of right-wing senators, which was to facilitate the hiring of long-term job seekers over 60 years old.
A second text on the RIP will be examined in May
The institution chaired by the former socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius did not follow the parliamentarians of the left or of the National Rally, who had pleaded a misuse of parliamentary procedure to have the law adopted. A choice which “does not disregard, in itself, any constitutional requirement”, according to the Council, which however evokes the “unusual nature” of the accumulation of procedures aimed at restricting the debates.
The Council also rejected the draft referendum of shared initiative carried by the left (RIP), which hoped for a green light to begin the collection of 4.8 million signatures with a view to a hypothetical and unprecedented consultation of the French for thwart the government’s plan. The left-wing parliamentarians tabled a second text on Thursday, on which the Constitutional Council will rule on May 3.
The word of the Council was particularly awaited by Emmanuel Macron and his government, who hope to be able to overcome the dispute rooted since January, and to resume the march of a quinquennium seriously hampered from its first year.
A revived dispute?
Decisions, not subject to appeal and to which the social movement and the political class had been suspended for several weeks, risk however not extinguishing the mobilizations.
“The fight continues,” declared the Insoumis leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon following the validation by the Constitutional Council. “The political fate of the pension reform is not sealed,” said Marine Le Pen, president of the RN group in the Assembly.
In Paris, a rally began on the forecourt of the Hôtel de Ville at the call of several unions, including the CGT and FO. Several hundred young people were also demonstrating in the capital and should join them at the end of the day. The police fear overflows. Blockages continued on Friday: disruption of traffic around Rouen, blocking of a food platform in the suburbs of Strasbourg, operation “free toll” by 150 to 200 demonstrators in Gironde…
“Whatever the decision of the Constitutional Council, we will not let go until the withdrawal” of the text, declared to AFP Pauline Moszkowski, union representative Sud Asso at Family Planning of Gironde, present on the spot. Entrenched behind riot barriers, the Constitutional Council itself was under guard. Any demonstration near its headquarters, in a wing of the Royal Palace, had been banned since 6 p.m. Thursday.
Unions invited by Macron
Emmanuel Macron did not wait for the decision of the Council to try to initiate the following and let it be known that he had invited the unions to the Élysée for a dialogue “without preconditions”. But on Thursday, during the 12e day of mobilization, the recipients seemed hardly disposed to defer to the presidential agenda and rather turned towards their traditional meeting of the 1is May.
“There is a decency to be had, people are not going to move on like that”, judged the boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger. “We will first give him the 15 days of reflection”, added his counterpart from FO Frédéric Souillot, who called on Emmanuel Macron to order a new deliberation in Parliament and “not to apply the law”.
But the head of state should promulgate the law in the coming days, assured the Elysee. The President of the Republic will bring together the executives of his majority on Monday. And should quickly address the French. He “wants to fight it out, he came back like a cuckoo clock”, observes a ministerial adviser.
