Socialist MP Valérie Rabault “greatly believes” in the possibility of a shared initiative referendum (RIP) to counter the government’s pension reform, recalling on Europe 1 on Tuesday that “it makes it possible to block the implementation for 9 months. of this reform”, and perhaps more.
For her, the potential use of article 49.3, “it is the subject of the government, it is its problem. (…) They want to force through, they will use what they have in the Constitution, and we will use the resistance that the Constitution also allows us”.
For this, there are “motions of censure” in the event of the triggering of 49.3, she said, but also the “referendum of shared initiative, I believe in it a lot”, she said.
For her, even if the law is passed, “the match is not over”. “If the law is promulgated, it applies but before its promulgation, there can be other stages”, like this Referendum of shared initiative, she insisted.
According to her, the RIP “makes it possible to block for 9 months the implementation of this reform and perhaps to ensure that it never sees the light of day”.
Ms. Rabault told AFP that “if a RIP is triggered on pensions, it must be before the promulgation of the pension law”, to “respect Article 11 of the Constitution”.
She recalls that the promulgation “obviously takes place after the vote of the law, but also after the decision of the Constitutional Council on the possible appeals”.
The shared initiative referendum is a complex procedure that has never been completed since its introduction into the Constitution in 2008.
It provides for the possibility of organizing a popular consultation on a bill “on the initiative of a fifth of the members of Parliament”, i.e. at least 185 of the 925 parliamentarians (577 deputies, 348 senators) and “supported by a tenth voters”, or 4.87 million people, whose signatures must be collected within 9 months.
Asked about Europe 1 to find out if this RIP could work for pension reform, she replied: “The same remarks were made to me when I launched the one against the privatization of Aéroports de Paris. No one believed it and finally we got there and ADP was not privatized”.
But this RIP proposal had finally collected only 1.1 million supporters, far from the necessary threshold. However, the government suspended its privatization project due to the coronavirus crisis.
“A RIP does not suspend the promulgation of the law,” she told AFP. Thus on ADP, he however “prevented its implementation for the part which relates to the privatization of Paris airports”, she added.
“It’s a reflection that we have”, confirmed to AFP the leader of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot, stressing however that “the timetables are unfortunately quite distant”, with the examination of the RIP by the Constitutional Council within a deadline. one month after its filing, then the collection of signatures. “It’s an obstacle course,” she said.
03/14/2023 12:39:14 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
