Emmanuel Macron decided: The French government will ask the vote of confidence, Article 49-3 the pension reform. This was learned from sources close to the executive branch, according to BFM TV. With the government’s decision to ask the vote of confidence, the pension reform became law. The prerequisite is that the motions of no confidence, which are tabled within 24 hours and discussed on Monday, do not receive a majority of the votes.
In that case the government would fall and with it the law in which it has placed its trust. Marine Le Pen has already announced her own no-confidence motion and has confirmed that she is also prepared to vote on the left’s no-confidence motions.
“We cannot play with the future of the country”: In this way, the French President, who intervened in the Council of Ministers, would have justified recourse to the controversial Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows not to go through the vote of the National Assembly to adopt the pension reform.
The decision was taken by Macron and the government in light of either a lack of a majority or too high a risk of losing the reform vote challenge by a handful of votes. The hotly contested plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 will therefore not be voted on, the government will vote for confidence and within 24 hours the opposition has the right to motion for a no-confidence motion in the government. With the prospect of having a cross-motion put to the vote that was tabled from the left or the right but accepted by both formations. If the motion of no confidence were majority, Elisabeth Borne’s government would be defeated and Macron would have to appoint a new prime minister and executive branch.
In view of the government’s vote of confidence in the pension reform, the opposition members have the right to table no-confidence motions within the next 24 hours. The services of the Assemblée Nationale have already announced that the vote on the motions – which will be “transversal” since Marine Le Pen has already announced that he will also vote on the motions of the left – is scheduled for Monday. The government has little chance of being defeated in confidence unless Republican or center legislators also vote against the government.
The leader of the Rassemblement National at the National Assembly in Paris, marine LePen, denounces “a democratic coup d’état” after Macron resorted to a vote of confidence with controversial Article 49-3 of the French constitution to pass pension reform. In front of journalists gathered in the National Assembly, he called for the resignation of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
Laurent Berger, the leader of France’s largest trade union CFDT announces “new mobilizations” of the unions. Demonstration near the National Assembly in Paris. Surrounded by heavy security, the demonstrators gathered on Rue de l’Université, not far from the lower house of the French Parliament. According to several journalists present at the scene, the demonstration is gradually spreading to nearby Boulevard Saint-Germain.
The pension reform has no “parliamentary legitimacy”, said France Insoumise President JEan-Luc Melenchon, interviewed by BFM-TV during his inspection of the square alongside the demonstrators protesting in Paris against Emmanuel Macron’s decision to resort to the Confidence with the controversial Article 49.3 of the Constitution to authorize the reform without going through the vote of the National Assembly. To the journalist who pointed out that the reform was approved by the Senate, Chairman Insoumis replied: “That’s true, but only by the Senate. Not by the French people and not by the National Assembly…”. When the reporter then pointed out that Article 49.3 was already provided for in French law, Mélenchon cut off: “Thank you for this lesson in constitutional law. Until we meet again”.
ANSA. it
After President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to accept the reform with confidence (ANSA)