A turning point in Macron’s five-year term after three months of crisis? The Constitutional Council on Friday validated the essentials of the pension reform, including the postponement of the legal age to 64, and blocked a first request for a referendum of shared initiative (RIP) from the left.
Intending to continue the fight, unions and political opponents have called on Emmanuel Macron to renounce the promulgation of the reform, whose emblematic measure, the gradual postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, will have the force of law. as soon as the president has placed his initials at the bottom of the text.
The decision of the Elders was greeted by boos in front of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, where some 3,000 demonstrators were already massed. “We will continue of course, we will amplify the demonstrations, with or without the inter-union. Macron will be forced to back down,” said one of them, John Barlou, unemployed 37 years old.
An obvious relief for the executive. “There is no winner or loser”, assured Elisabeth Borne, for whom this stage marks “the end of the institutional and democratic journey” of the text adopted in the Assembly after a 49.3.
“It’s not over,” promised the inter-union in response, convinced that not enacting the law is the “only way to calm anger (…) in the country”. The president “cannot govern the country until he withdraws this reform”, insisted the number one of the CGT Sophie Binet.
The inter-union will also not accept the invitation launched by Emmanuel Macron and does not want an exchange with the executive before May 1, for which the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger calls for “major popular demonstrations” .
The institution on rue de Montpensier unsurprisingly censured several “social riders” who “had no place” in a 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.
Also censored, the CDI seniors, an addition by right-wing senators, which was to facilitate the hiring of long-term job seekers over the age of 60.
Chaired by the former socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, the Council did not follow the parliamentarians of the left or of the RN, who had invoked a misuse of parliamentary procedure for the benefit of the executive.
However, the Council recognizes the “unusual nature” of the accumulation of procedures aimed at restricting debate in Parliament.
“It reinforces the already exorbitant powers (…) in favor of the executive to the detriment of Parliament”, lamented on BFMTV the deputy Liot (independents) Charles de Courson.
“The Constitutional Council has aggravated the crisis, it is putting us all up against the wall”, launched the leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The Council also rejected a draft referendum of shared initiative (RIP) carried by the left, which hoped to begin the collection of 4.8 million signatures for an unprecedented consultation of the French to thwart the reform. They filed a second reformulated request, on which the Council will rule on May 3.
The decision was particularly awaited by Emmanuel Macron and his government, who hope to overcome the rooted protest since January, and relaunch a seriously hampered five-year term.
“The political fate of the pension reform is not sealed,” said Marine Le Pen, president of the RN group in the Assembly, for whom the entry into force of this reform “will mark the definitive break between the French people and Emmanuel Macron”.
On the right, the boss of LR Eric Ciotti on the contrary called on “all political forces” to “accept” the decisions of the Council.
The four presidents of the Nupes groups in the Assembly wrote to the Head of State to ask him for a “gesture of appeasement” by bringing the text back to Parliament, as allowed by the Constitution.
But the head of state should promulgate the law in the coming days, according to the Elysée.
Demonstrations were underway Friday at the end of the day in several cities in France, including the Parisian rally at the Hôtel de Ville at the call of the CGT and FO in particular.
In Lille, a few hundred demonstrators led by young antifas gathered near the prefecture. Gatherings took place in Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Grenoble.
In Rennes, the door of a police station in the city center was set on fire before being extinguished, on the sidelines of a rally bringing together several hundred people.
The decision of the Elders “is a declaration of war”, reacted earlier Fabrice Le Restif, secretary of the Departmental Union FO of Ille-et-Vilaine.
In Strasbourg, a few hundred people left after the end of the rally in a “wild demonstration” in the neighborhoods bordering the hypercentre. The police used tear gas a few times.
Thursday, the 12th day of mobilization had delivered the second lowest mobilization score since the beginning of the movement (380,000 demonstrators according to the Ministry of the Interior, 1.5 million according to the CGT).
Emmanuel Macron will bring together the executives of his majority on Monday, and should quickly address the French. He “wants to do battle, he went up like a cuckoo”, observes a ministerial adviser.
Elisabeth Borne, for her part, will speak on Saturday afternoon in Paris at the National Council of the Renaissance presidential party.
04/14/2023 21:44:17 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
