Many elected officials, especially on the left, reacted this Saturday to the promulgation of the pension reform law, published in the Official Journal overnight. They denounce the speed with which this unpopular law was enacted.
The reactions are raining down. The promulgation Saturday morning in the Official Journal of the unpopular law on pension reform, after the validation of the bulk of the text by the Constitutional Council, does not pass with the left opposition. The promulgation of a law entails its entry into force and it is implemented after the publication of implementing decrees.
Some personalities, particularly on the left, denounced the overnight publication of this law in the Official Journal, which records the formal publication of laws and decrees. “Even at night, it night …”, commented the deputy La France insoumise Alexis Corbière on Twitter. Also an LFI deputy, François Ruffin denounced the “brutality” of the executive.
“Like thieves, Emmanuel Macron and his band promulgated their law on pensions in the middle of the night. Because they know it well: what they have just practiced is a democratic hold-up”, estimated the MP on Twitter.
“A law enacted in the middle of the night, like thieves. Thieves of life”, castigated the deputy and national secretary of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, on Twitter.
The Prime Minister’s website explains that the publication of the Official Journal does not have a “defined” schedule but that “usage, political and legal obligations have led to an early morning publication of the JORF (on average between 2 and 7 a.m.)”.
A promulgation considered too fast
Others denounce the speed with which the text was promulgated. On BFMTV this Friday, the spokesperson and deputy of the National Rally Philippe Ballard judges that the promulgation after validation of the Constitutional Council is “the logical course of things” but considers that with this rapid publication, “Emmanuel Macron embodies the perpetual movement for to provoke, to humiliate, to trigger the anger of the French”.
The national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier, judges that Emmanuel Macron has “precipitate” to promulgate this law, when he had a fifteen days to do so.
“But what a provocation! New bravado from Emmanuel Macron, when the country has never been so fractured. It was really the moment… While saying that he wanted to appease: who is he kidding?”, Wrote Marine Tondelier on Twitter.
The EELV deputy for Paris Sandrine Rousseau also castigated an “irresponsible” decision which “puts our democracy in danger”.
LFI MP Clémentine Autain criticized “Macron’s eagerness to crush the heads of the opposition and the majority of French people”. She sees it as a desire to “prevent any new RIP request from succeeding”. The RIP, or shared initiative referendum, has already been the subject of a request from the left rejected by the Constitutional Council on Friday.
A second request of deputies and senators was tabled on Thursday, on which a decision is expected the 3 from. The left wants to go through this type of referendum, the conditions of which are strict, to force the executive to reverse the pension reform.
In the meantime, several elected officials, including Clémentine Autain, are calling for a major mobilization on May 1. Friday, in a press release, the inter-union called on employees to make May 1 “a day of exceptional and popular mobilization against pension reform and for social justice”.
