Romain Rouillard 17:23 pm, March 16, 2023

This Thursday, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced the use of Article 49.3 of the Constitution to adopt, without a vote, the pension reform. In the aftermath, Marine Le Pen (RN) indicated that her group would table a motion of censure against the executive. An initiative that has very rarely succeeded.

So the government finally decided. This Thursday, Elisabeth Borne triggered Article 49.3 of the Constitution in order to adopt the pension reform. The executive therefore did not want to risk a vote in the Assembly, for fear that the text would be rejected. An initiative that aroused the anger of the oppositions and in particular the Insoumise who addressed boos to Elisabeth Borne as she tried to speak in the hemicycle. On the other side of the political spectrum, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN deputies, announced that her group would soon table a motion of censure against the government.

A tool that could also be mobilized by other political parties, including the Nupes. It allows, in the event of a favourable vote, to prevent the adoption of a text and to lead to the resignation of the government. And most likely a dissolution of the Assembly. However, such a scenario almost never occurred under the Fifth Republic. Of the sixty motions tabled, only one hit the nail on the head, in 1962.

In 1992, a motion failed... With three voices

At the time, the deputies wanted to oppose General de Gaulle's reform which introduced the election of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage. Until then, the Head of State was elected for seven years "by an electoral college comprising the members of Parliament, the general councils and assemblies of the overseas territories, as well as the elected representatives of the municipal councils", indicates Article 6 of the Constitution of 4 October 1958.

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On 5 October 1962, the motion of censure received 280 votes in favour (out of 480 deputies) and thus led to the resignation of the government led by Georges Pompidou and the dissolution of the lower house decided by de Gaulle. However, the Gaullist troops won the ensuing legislative elections. 30 years later, in 1992, another motion was close to being adopted against the Bérégovoy government, during François Mitterrand's second seven-year term. It aimed to challenge the reform of the common agricultural policy and ended up failing by only three votes (286 out of the 289 needed).