Pensions: Djebbari not in favor of 49-3 but does not exclude his appeal - France 24

Paris (AFP)

The Secretary of State for Transport did not completely exclude a call to 49-3 on Friday to have the pension reform passed in the National Assembly without voting, but prefers "to go after what is possible in the parliamentary debate" .

The use of 49-3 "is not to be excluded, of course," said Djebbari on RTL, while the debates are stuck in the National Assembly.

"It is a tool available to the government," he said. This device "was wanted by General De Gaulle to avoid this kind of situation where you have a majority or a Parliament which is unable to work".

Article 49 paragraph 3 allows the Prime Minister to engage the responsibility of the government before the National Assembly on a text of law. The bill is then considered to have been adopted without a vote, except a motion of censure voted by the Assembly.

The new Minister of Solidarity and Health Olivier Véran had already indicated on Tuesday that the government was "(empowered) to use all means to adopt this reform", even if it was not yet "the option envisaged".

"The presidential majority is extremely mobilized. (...) The deputies of the majority are not in this constitutional hypothesis there for the moment," noted Jean-Baptiste Djebbari Friday.

"I situate myself in the dynamic which is that of the presidential majority, which is that of going to the end of what is possible in the parliamentary debate. But I say it: the government's determination to have this text voted (... ) is total, and therefore this text will be voted, "he said.

"I stand for the moment in the dynamics of a debate found, I hope, in the coming days, in the National Assembly," insisted the secretary of state.

When asked whether the government would decide what action to take in due course, he replied: "As you say."

"Let us point out the responsibilities," he said, accusing the leader of La France rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of practicing "a kind of diversion of the right of amendment". "In doing so, it makes political debate impossible," he added.

The debate in the Assembly "is catastrophic", regretted Mr. Djebbari: "It is a point of order on a point of order, it is personal invective ... It is not at the level of a parliamentary debate that must lead the deputies of the nation. "

© 2020 AFP