One of the most sensitive measures of the pension reform project has passed a parliamentary milestone. The Senate, with a majority on the right, voted, Saturday evening, March 4, the extinction of several special regimes, for future recruits.
The left, which has largely occupied the field in the Senate since the start of the debates on Thursday, argued all day against this first article of the government bill which provides for the gradual extinction of five special regimes (electricity and gas industries, RATP, Banque de France, notary clerks and employees, members of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council). It is expected that staff recruited from September 2023 will be affiliated to the common law scheme for old-age insurance.
For the left, the end of the special regimes is “an ideological and demagogic proposal”, which will not generate financial gain. Are the trades involved “as arduous [today as they were]?” “, retorted the general rapporteur, Elisabeth Doineau (Centrist Union). “We have to open our eyes, we ask for efforts from all French people, whoever they are,” she argued.
“You have decided to ‘border’ a major sector of our energy sovereignty”, launched the president of the Socialist Party (PS) group, Patrick Kanner, to the address of the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt. “You are going to go down in history as the gravediggers of our welfare,” he added.
A “left-wing reform”, says Olivier Dussopt
In an interview with Le Parisien, Olivier Dussopt, a former socialist, defended a “left-wing reform which could have been carried out by a social-democratic government”, and which “creates rights that we did not know about, in particular on hardship and carers”.
“The last reform led by the left increased the contribution period, which constitutes a machine for small pensions”, he criticized.
The right, it is almost absent from the discussion in the Senate. “You want to obstruct, we don’t”, dropped to the left, Saturday, the leader of the senators Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau. The latter wants these special schemes also to be abolished for current employees, but his proposal will be examined later. The government is against, and its amendment could be rejected, for lack of support from the centrists.
The debates will continue on Sunday on the equally sensitive article 2, concerning the employment of seniors. The hitherto very balanced climate became tense on Saturday evening, around an imbroglio on the publication of an “opinion” of the Council of State on the bill, insistently requested by the left. The Minister of Labor assuring him that it is a “note” which does not have to be published. “I understood that I was not in the National Assembly,” Mr. Dussopt replied when the socialist Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie questioned his “sincerity”.
Acerbic exchange also between Mrs. de La Gontrie, who launched on the right “you have not done anything for two days, we have been working”, and the rapporteur LR René-Paul Savary. “You prefer platform effects to work efficiency,” he retorted, praising the constancy of the senatorial majority on the issue of pensions.
The access of tension was brief, far from the permanent heckling that had prevailed in the National Assembly. In a column in the Sunday newspaper, four former presidents of the Assembly (Bernard Accoyer, Claude Bartolone, Jean-Louis Debré and François de Rugy) also denounced “a distressing spectacle”, calling for “respect for the National Assembly and its president.
Strike by electricians and gas workers
The debates are held in the Senate as pressure mounts in the streets and businesses ahead of the March 7 mobilization. Electricians and gas workers, concerned like the RATP by this disappearance of their regime, began a renewable strike on Friday. It leads to reductions in electricity production in several nuclear power plants, without causing cuts for customers.
“If Emmanuel Macron does not want a France at a standstill and a dark week in energy, it would be better for him to withdraw his reform,” warned Sébastien Ménesplier, secretary general of CGT Energie. “We will be capable of anything,” warned Fabrice Coudour, Federal Secretary. On tour in Africa, the head of state said on Saturday that he had “not much new to say”.
Gabriel Attal raised his voice against the unions: it is “the French that they will block” and “the workers that they will bring to their knees”, said the Minister of Public Accounts, on the sidelines of a visit to the Agricultural Show, calling on reform opponents to “responsibility”.
The mobilization of March 7 against the postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, promises to be massive. According to police sources, the intelligence services expect between 1.1 and 1.4 million demonstrators throughout France.
The inter-union will meet on Tuesday evening to decide on the next steps: “there is not a gravel between us”, assured France Inter, Saturday, the secretary general of FO, Frédéric Souillot. “There will be general assemblies which will decide whether or not to renew” the movement on the sites on strike.
