A turning point in the five-year term after 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 rue de Montpensier institution, on the other hand, unsurprisingly 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 was the senior CDI, an addition by right-wing senators, which was to facilitate the hiring of long-term job seekers over 60.
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 for 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.
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 struggle continues,” said Insoumis leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon after 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 text is withdrawn,” Pauline Moszkowski, Sud Asso union representative at Gironde Family Planning, told AFP. 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 prohibited since Thursday 6 p.m.
Emmanuel Macron did not wait for the Council’s decision to try to initiate the follow-up and let it be known that he had invited the unions to the Élysée for a dialogue “without preconditions”. But Thursday, during the 12th day of mobilization, the recipients seemed unwilling to defer to the presidential agenda and rather turned to their traditional May 1 meeting.
“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 FO counterpart 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,” observes a ministerial adviser.
