It’s D-Day. Almost a month after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s announcement of the suspension of pension reform, deputies are considering it this Wednesday afternoon from 3 p.m. in the National Assembly. “I think the suspension will be implemented soon and, personally, I hope so,” said Parliamentary Relations Minister Laurent Panifous this Wednesday morning on Radio Sud.
So who will choose what? Le Parisien takes stock.
RN, PS and Liot have to choose
Not surprisingly, the deputy leader of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen, this Wednesday morning, confirmed on RTL that her people will vote in favor of suspending the pension reform, which she has always championed. When asked whether you would vote for the suspension of pension reform, the member for Pas-de-Calais answered: “of course, in a completely reasonable way”. “All RN deputies will do the same thing,” he added.
The Socialist Party (PS), which pushed for this suspension, should also vote for it. This latter group did not hesitate to express their joy at having succeeded in ousting Emmanuel Macron, who has so far been inflexible in carrying out major reforms in his second five-year term despite numerous demonstrations. “This balance of power is paying off,” exulted socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj.
The deputies of the Liot group (Libertés, independents, foreign countries and regions) could also follow suit, supporting the suspension. “Liot was the author of the censure motion against the Borne reforms in 2023,” recalled Liot MP for Eure-et-Loir Harold Huwart on franceinfo.
LR, Horizons and LFI will vote against, Renaissance and MoDem will abstain
Points of convergence between the Republicans (LR) and Horizons (Édouard Philippe’s party) on the one hand and La France insoumise (LFI) are rare, this is one of them. All three parties will vote against suspending pension reform, but for opposite reasons.
In LR, party number 1 Bruno Retailleau threatened to censor the government if this suspension was carried out. For what reason? On the one “economic” side, LR considered these reforms necessary, and from a more political point of view. “Economic seriousness is the most important point in distinguishing the right, left and RN. It will make us silent…”, said a close friend of the former Home Minister in our column. Bruno Retailleau then denounced the “exorbitant costs” borne by a state “ready to do anything to defend itself.”
On the other hand, LFI condemned the “PS-Lecornu compromise”. For the deputy of Seine-Saint-Denis and president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly Éric Coquerel, the vote for “the postponement of these 3 months” amounts to a de facto validation also for the first time of the legal age of 64, a Borne reform adopted in 2023 without a vote with reference to article 49.3 of the Constitution.
Horizons, for its part, believes that France must “work longer”. Édouard Philippe also considered this to be a “too important” concession given to PS. The Macronis and the Ministry of Democracy would abstain, often reluctantly, but not wanting to derail the agreement between Sébastien Lecornu and the Socialists.
What will environmental activists and communists do?
Currently, the positions of the communists and ecologists seem unresolved. To try to get the votes of some of them, the government proposed an amendment to extend this deferral to long-term careers, to the “active” and “superactive” categories of the public service (firefighters, nurses, etc.) and to people born in the first quarter of 1965.
Debate should begin around 3 p.m. at the Palais-Bourbon.
