The debates on the very controversial pension reform started Thursday in the Senate, in a much more serene atmosphere than in the National Assembly, the government extending its hand to the Republicans while the left denounced the reform “of the united rights”.
“I know that here there is no ZAD, but the Republic”, launched, in an allusion to the tumult which had reigned in the Assembly, the Minister in charge of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal, causing some stir in the hemicycle.
“Here you have nothing to fear Minister Dussopt”, then slipped the president of the centrist group Hervé Marseille to the address of the Minister of Labor, who had been taken to task by LFI deputies.
This first session, chaired by the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher (LR), started with a short intervention by the Communist Éliane Assassi, who expressed the “duty” of the left to demonstrate its “strongest opposition in this hemicycle “.
More than 4,700 amendments, battle of procedures, verbal contests … The 110 hours of discussion planned, a third more than at the Palais Bourbon in February according to the right, will they make it possible to reach the final vote before the March 12 midnight gong?
In any case, this is the wish expressed by Gérard Larcher for whom “the Senate owes citizens and social partners a debate on the entire text”. “We want a debate that goes as far as the vote,” insisted the president of the LR group Bruno Retailleau.
“To remove all suspense, I would like to say that of course we are going to vote for a text, which will be our text, that is to say that we will vote for the reform, but a modified reform,” he said.
Previously, Gabriel Attal had launched “a call for compromise between the senatorial majority which embodies the desire for reform and the presidential majority which bears the responsibility for reform”.
“It is no longer the Macron-Borne reform, but the Macron-Borne-Retailleau reform, that of the rights united against the left, united”, commented the socialist David Assouline in front of the press.
Deprived of a vote of the deputies, the executive relies on the Senate to confer democratic legitimacy on a reform which two thirds of the French (66%) do not want, according to an Odoxa poll.
The exchanges will be organized around the strategic Tuesday, March 7. The CGT called on Thursday to “go up a notch” in the mobilization against the decline in the retirement age to 64 and to “bring France to a halt”. In the air, the administration asked companies to cancel between 20 and 30% of their flights on March 7 and 8 following a strike notice.
The deputies, embroiled in heated debates, were only able to fully examine two of the twenty articles of the text in two weeks.
It is therefore on the text of the government, barely modified, that the senators will floor.
Unsurprisingly, they largely rejected two motions to reject the text en bloc presented by the majority communist and environmentalist CRCE groups. The PS has also filed a request for a referendum on behalf of the left, which will be discussed on Friday morning and should suffer the same fate.
The left-wing groups intend to “stand up” to oppose a “tinkered”, “not fair”, “not useful” reform.
Contrary to what happened in the Assembly, PS, Communist and Ecologist senators want a vote on Article 7, which pushes back the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. “The French must know who votes and who votes what when it comes to their future,” defends the boss of the socialist group Patrick Kanner.
The left, however, wants the vote on this key article not to take place until the end of the day of mobilization on March 7, the debates then accelerating to exhaust the rest of the text.
The right intends to defend its “markers”: return to financial balance and family policy. She thus proposes to grant a “surcharge” of pension to mothers who have a full career.
A measure amounting to 300 million euros, watched “with interest” by the government, said Mr. Dussopt. “A maternity bonus,” castigated Ms. Assassi.
On the other hand, despite LR’s requests, the Minister of Labor does not intend to accelerate the extinction of special pension schemes, and wants to preserve the “grandfather clause” (which maintains special schemes for employees who already benefit from them ).
The senatorial majority also offers a new CDI formula, exempt from family contributions, to facilitate the hiring of unemployed seniors.
The senators also expect clarification from the government on long careers, a point which crystallized the debates in the Assembly.
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03/02/2023 19:15:00 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
