Pensions: Braun-Pivet between two fires, before the examination of the text of the repeal of the 64 years

Alexis Delafontaine with AFP // Photo credit: Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP 08:58, May 30, 2023

Yaël Braun-Pivet is under pressure for the examination of a text to repeal retirement at 64, caught between her camp that pushes her to torpedo it and her desire to remain a president of the Assembly above the fray. The bill of the independent group Liot, supported by the oppositions and the unions, must pass on 31st May in committee, before arriving on 8th June in the hemicycle. And the presidential camp seems determined to prevent it from being the subject of a vote considered high-risk.

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A text qualified as a "scam"

It is "obviously" inadmissible, said Thursday the holder of the Perchoir on Sud Radio, because it would result in an additional financial cost estimated by the presidential camp at least 15 billion euros. "It very clearly contravenes Article 40 of our Constitution which prohibits parliamentarians from aggravating the burdens of the State," she also told the Tribune. Any statements to clarify his position? Behind the scenes of the majority, where strategists compete plans to cut short this text qualified as a "scam" without "any chance" of success, they were many to be annoyed by the reluctance of Yaël Braun-Pivet.

The former lawyer, member of the Macronist group Renaissance but who was not the candidate of the head of state for the Perchoir, refused to question a decision of the Bureau of the Assembly upstream, at the time of the tabling of the disputed text. The Bureau had not blocked, in accordance with a flexibility of use for this first filter of the bills.

New plan

Faithful to her wish to respect the letter of the rules and traditions of the institution, she still considers that she does not have the cards in her hands to reject the text at this stage. "It is up to the chairman of the Finance Committee which is seized of this question of Article 40, to pronounce the inadmissibility," she said Thursday. "I cannot conceive of him taking any decision other than inadmissibility." But the latter is none other than the Insoumise Eric Coquerel. Who last week welcomed the fact that Mrs Braun-Pivet respected the Bureau's first decision, and who makes no secret of her intention to let the repeal text continue its way to the Chamber.

The Macronists, however, have a new plan in mind, in which they urge the president to play one of the leading roles. They hope to succeed Wednesday in removing the article of abrogation of retirement at 64 years in committee, where they believe they have a favorable balance of power. A scenario that would force Liot to reintroduce his flagship measure by an amendment ahead of the session of 8 June... and this time would give the President the opportunity to brandish Article 40.

"Maximum pressure"

"They are trying by all means to avoid a fateful vote, so they are pulling on all the strings," said a Liot MP. "Braun-Pivet is under maximum pressure: if she holds her line of respect for the institution and the oppositions, by letting a vote take place, they will try to exfiltrate her." "In the hemicycle, it is I who am accountable for the application of Article 40," she said Thursday, suggesting that she could indeed take responsibility for trying to block the text before a vote.

"Do not do this, you have kept until then the pressure to preserve the role of Parliament," called on Twitter the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau. "If she does not do it, she is fired," says a Macronist parliamentarian, even if this possibility of "firing" the president of the Assembly does not exist. "It has annoyed for a year" President Macron and "will continue to play the same score," expects another, while Yaël Braun-Pivet has already been criticized in the past for his demonstrations of independence and some lend him presidential ambitions.

For its part, the entourage of the first woman at the Perchoir is annoyed by the trials in "rider alone" made in his own camp, while "she has always done the job" and "is loyal". But she "will never twist the rules" and "those who try to put pressure on her will be disappointed".