Pension reform: the Senate votes to postpone the legal retirement age to 64
The length of the debates in the National Assembly, with the strategy of obstruction of La France insoumise, had not allowed a discussion on the postponement of the legal retirement age. Conversely, thanks to the conciseness of the debates imposed by the right, the Senate was able, during the night of Wednesday to Thursday, to debate and vote on article 7 of the government reform project, a key point of the text.
Greeted by some applause on the right, the vote postponing the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 was won by 201 votes to 115, out of 345 voters. “I am delighted that the debates made it possible to reach this vote,” tweeted Elisabeth Borne .
The left upwind
The senatorial majority had released, for this article, the heavy artillery of the rules to speed up the debates facing the “obstruction” of the left. She was indignant at a “coup de force”.
“You are botching the debate”, “the so-called wisdom of the Senate has taken a hit”, criticized the leader of the Communist senators Eliane Assassi. “We will never accept that you melenchonise the Senate,” retorted his counterpart from the Republicans Bruno Retailleau.
Discussions in the upper house will resume this Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Elected officials will debate a controversial amendment by Bruno Retailleau, which provides that the gradual extinction of special regimes, already voted for future hires , also applies to employees already in office. This questioning of the “grandfather clause” does not convince either its centrist allies, neither the government .
Union pressure
For its part, the inter-union continues to put pressure with a new mobilization planned for Saturday and the multiplication of actions. She asked to be received “urgently” by Emmanuel Macron “so that he withdraws his reform”.
“The door of the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, always remains open”, their replied the Prime Minister in the Senate. “The government is always ready and open to dialogue,” she assured. Earlier, government spokesman Olivier Véran had explained that the President of the Republic “respected the institutions […] today, parliamentary time is in effect”.
The hope of adoption by a vote
At LR, dissension persists, fueled by a meeting between the deputy Aurélien Pradié and the leader of the CFDT, Laurent Berger . The one who recently lost his number 2 status still refuses to vote as it stands for the text “which penalizes workers”. However, the government needs the votes of the right in the National Assembly to adopt the text.
Not to vote for the reform would be “disloyal”, moreover warned on franceinfo the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, for the intention of recalcitrant macronist elected officials. The executive is also betting on a loss of steam in the social movement.
The government thus hopes to quickly obtain a first victory with the vote by the upper house of the whole text by the deadline of Sunday. Should then follow a joint committee bringing together several senators and deputies. If they agree on a text, the final adoption of the reform could take place on March 16.
With AFP
