Pensions: the untraceable majority of Emmanuel Macron
“In this assembly, a majority exists” to vote pension reform . This is what Elisabeth Borne kept repeating on Tuesday at the Palais-Bourbon. An anaphora resembling the Coué method. This Thursday, we had to face the facts: the majority invoked by the Prime Minister does not exist. For this bill, as probably for the next ones, on immigration or even work.
This is one of the great lessons of this day: Emmanuel Macron no longer has a crutch on the right to lean on. Barely more than half of LR deputies were ready to give the green light on the retreats. The executive had to resolve to resort to article 49-3 of the Constitution.
Concessions
The president and his government can no longer count on Les Républicains, because if there is a reform that should have been supported by LR deputies, it is that of pensions. This has been symbolically voted in recent years by the right-wing majority in the Senate and the postponement of the legal retirement age to 65 was included in the presidential program of Valérie Pécresse.
The Republicans also obtained from the government almost all the concessions they demanded on women, seniors, long careers or small pensions. But nothing worked. Number of its elected members of the Assembly (and even some in the Senate) did not want to endorse a very unpopular reform, out of conviction, cynicism or more often out of fear of not being re-elected.
The approach of the electoral deadlines – the senatorial elections in September, the European ones next year – will lead the right-wing parliamentarians to stiffen up a little more. And those on the left can hardly be a lifeline for macronie.
Tight relationships
The Socialists had, of course, brought their votes to the Assembly at renewable energy bill , allowing its adoption. But we won’t take them there again. The pension reform has robbed them. And the use of 49.3 will further radicalize them.
To complete the table, relative majority available to the Head of State at the Palais-Bourbon does not show itself to be the most united. Relations are strained between Renaissance, Horizons and the Modem. And it’s not going to work out. All this little world is already projecting itself into the post-Macron period and towards the presidential election of 2027.
In Parliament, the executive will have the greatest difficulty in maneuvering, apart from the budgetary texts on which it can activate as it wishes 49.3. His action will be hindered. Emmanuel Macron will be forced to compose, or even sometimes to give up. It’s not in his temperament. But he will have to get used to it. Except to dissolve the Assembly.
