Paris (AFP)
The battle over pension reform comes alive in the Assembly on Monday: the majority, after a chaotic weekend, will defend in the hemicycle a project that the opposition denounces as "unfair" and intends to torpedo by a cloud of amendments.
After weeks of protests in the street and a call for a new day of mobilization Monday, the macronie arrives turned upside down, the rapporteur of the organic component of the reform Olivier Véran having had to take off the hat of Minister of Health on Sunday.
Agnès Buzyn left him his place to take over, in the LREM race at the town hall of Paris, of Benjamin Griveaux, carried away on Friday by a case of videos of a sexual nature.
Turbulence that adds to the quirks and discordant voices that have risen in the majority. To the point that Emmanuel Macron had called on Tuesday the deputies "to the unit" to "win the pension battle" and "sell" this highly sensitive project aiming to create a "universal system" of pension by points, fruit of a campaign engagement of the Head of State.
The unfinished examination last week in committee due to an avalanche of amendments from LFI deputies, an unprecedented fact after 75 hours of deaf dialogue, was only a preamble.
Will the calendar be tenable this time when 41,000 amendments have been tabled, even more than the 22,000 in committee?
For the time being, fifteen days of debate are scheduled, or 84 hours. But "if we need a third (week of debate), we will take the third," said majority boss Gilles Le Gendre, Sunday at RTL-LCI-Le Figaro.
The government, represented by Secretary of State Laurent Pietraszewski and therefore the new Minister Olivier Veran, is still counting on an adoption at first reading before the municipal elections in a month and hopes for a final green light "by the summer" on the two texts (ordinary and organic).
Faced with the obstruction of the rebels with their amendments, the majority officials hammered that recourse to 49-3 - weapon of the Constitution which allows adoption without a vote - "is not the objective" but "walkers" do not exclude it if the debate is "clearly impossible".
"Totally unthinkable," warned LR. It would even be "delirium" for the number one CFDT Laurent Berger.
But the oppositions warned that the text would not pass "like a letter in the post".
The few signals sent in committee for teachers or lawyers were not convincing. In addition, new amendments announced this week on arduousness or family rights.
- "Amateurism" -
Right and left denounce a "contempt" of the Parliament and a "nebulous" and "with holes" project, with in particular the thirty or so ordinances programmed.
The three left groups --PS, PCF and LFI - who denounce a "guilty amateurism" of the government, expect in addition to the amendments (almost 37,000 among them three) on a referendum motion on Monday, even a motion of censure, stages which will slow down the debates.
The boss of the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon who claims "a victory" in committee, promised a "noria" of his group in order to "sink the line of macronist defense". The PCF, which judges the reform "much worse" than what had been announced, will not be outdone just like the PS, persuaded that "a certain number of fellow-citizens will be made have".
LR, like them, castigates the government's "unpreparedness" and believes that for funding "we are walking on our heads".
The vote on the reform is scheduled before the conclusions of the financing conference, which is expected to find by April measures to reach equilibrium in 2027.
On the majority side, where we denounce the "sketch" of the rebellious, we display the desire to bring this reform "of social progress", "against winds of obstruction and tides of amendments" to a successful conclusion.
"We are organized to last," said AFP co-rapporteur Jacques Maire (LREM), a parliamentary source banking on the fact that the opposition will "make a mess" the first days but that it will not last not.
If the group supports the reform overall, questions have emerged about its budgetary impact, and some on the left wing intend to make their voices heard on subjects such as arduousness. A "walker" predicts "an exercise in strong collective discipline".
© 2020 AFP