posted on 03/20/2023 18:47
(Image credit: Bertrand GUAY/AFP)
French MPs nearly toppled the government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and its unpopular pension reform on Monday (20/3) amid intense protests against the controversial adoption by decree. President Emmanuel Macron (Liberal) finally confirmed his project to tighten access to full pensions, but his Prime Minister’s government emerged weakened from this dispute.
“There are only nine votes left to overthrow this government and its reform, a government that for the French is already dead and that no longer has any legitimacy,” said farleft MP Mathilde Panot.
The vote in the National Assembly (Lower House) was closer than expected. Independent group LIOT’s motion received 278 of the required 287 votes. In contrast, the text presented by the extreme right managed only 94.
The failure of the two motions ends the parliamentary saga of the reform, which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 and requires 43 years of contributions instead of 42 to receive a full pension from 2027. .
However, the opposition has not yet thrown in the towel and has already announced that it will submit means to the Constitutional Council to stem its request and also to promote a referendum.
“The roads will make the difference”
Unions have also called for a new day of massive demonstrations next Thursday as protests gather pace across the country between spontaneous protests and strikes in key sectors.
Blocked roads, traffic disruptions, invasion of the airport, thousands of tons of rubbish in the streets of Paris, lack of fuel in the southeast of France… The strikers multiplied their protest actions.
“The roads will make the difference. Contrary to what power thinks, the streets will decide in the end,” said Odile Agrafeil, a retired banker, during a protest in Strasbourg (northeast) on Monday evening.
After the news of the failure of the two noconfidence motions, protests against the reform resumed on the streets of Paris and other cities. Demonstrations have intensified in recent days, with clashes with police, shelling of dumpsters and smashed shop windows.
The catalyst for these protests was Macron’s decision on Thursday to push through his project without MEPs’ vote, as polls showed he feared defeat in Parliament linked to the text’s rejection by unions and two out of three French people. .
Unions had warned that the protests could become radicalized beyond their control if the government didn’t back down after the largest demonstrations against social reforms in three decades.
Borne, ‘determined to continue’
At stake for the president, whose position is unaffected by the motion of no confidence, is the possibility of using his second term program until 2027.
However, observers believed that the government would win a Pyrrhic victory. The use of Article 49.3 which allowed the reform to be approved by decree “will make adoption more difficult [outras] reforms in the future,” warned riskrating agency Moody’s, which supports such a law.
Attention is turning to what will happen to the Prime Minister, who said in a statement to AFP today that she is “determined to continue to bring about the necessary changes in France”.
Nineteen of the 61 MPs from the rightwing opposition group Os Republicanos (LR), on whom the government depends to secure the majorities needed to pass legislation, voted in favor of the motion.
“It is obvious that the government today has a legitimacy problem and that the president cannot become a bystander,” politician Aurélien Pradié, one of the leaders of this internal opposition within the Republicans, told BFMTV.
Farright leader Marine Le Pen, Macron’s competitor in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, whose party emerged stronger from the social conflict in the polls, also called for Borne’s resignation or departure.
Tomorrow, the president is due to meet his prime minister and several ministers before speaking to leaders of the National Assembly and Senate and addressing the ruling parliamentarians.
A few days ago, Macron threatened to dissolve the National Assembly in the event of a setback for his reform.
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