Even if this Thursday’s motions of censure are rejected, the pension reform cannot automatically be enacted. The oppositions wish to seize the Constitutional Council and the left proposes a referendum of shared initiative.
The pension reform is entering one of its last laps. Depending on the result of the motions of censure debated this Monday from 4 p.m., it could be adopted. However, the oppositions have other means to prevent its promulgation, such as an appeal to the Constitutional Council or the organization of a shared initiative referendum. BFMTV.com discusses these different possibilities.
Motions of censure
The deputies will examine two motions of censure. One comes from the National Rally (RN), the other, wanted to be transpartisan, from the group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-Mer and Territories (Liot) and the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes).
In the present case, if the provision becomes effective, it would lead not only to the overthrow of the government, but also to the rejection of the pension reform. The executive would nevertheless keep the possibility of submitting the text to a new reading in the two chambers of Parliament, as required by the procedure for a text drawn up by a joint committee (CMP).
However, this scenario is unlikely. Everything will be decided by a few votes from Les Républicains deputies. To pass, the motion must gather an absolute majority of the votes, ie 287 currently, and not 289, due to partial legislative elections. A good part of this total will be reached thanks to the votes of the left, the extreme right and the Liot group. However, some thirty votes from the right will be missing.
However, the elected representatives of this political family ready to free themselves from the instructions of their management can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They will be ten, even fifteen, indicated the various deputies “slingers” present in the mornings this Monday. The motion of censure should therefore, unless surprised, be rejected. However, the law will not necessarily be promulgated.
The constitutionnal Council
The oppositions have several levers. First option: file an appeal with the Constitutional Council, which has the power to censure the text in part or in its entirety if it is deemed unconstitutional. To seize it, it is necessary to bring together at least 60 parliamentarians. Promulgation of the law is then suspended and the authority has one month to study the referral. The government can nevertheless ask “if there is urgency”, to reduce this period to eight days, under article 61.3 of the Constitution.
The possibility of an appeal to the Constitutional Council was raised by the rebellious Mathilde Panot, Marine Le Pen but also the deputy centrist Charles de Courson, interviewed on BFMTV. In the viewfinder of the latter: the legislative vehicle used by the executive for its reform, that is to say an amending social security financing bill (PLFRSS). This type of text allows the use of Article 47.1 of the Constitution, which limits debates to 50 days in Parliament.
On BFMTV-RMC, Charles de Courson denounced “a total misuse of procedure”, specifying that these bills generally follow “decisions to lower social security contributions (which) impacted the social accounts”. However, this is not the case with the current reform, he stressed.
Deputy Liot, who is one of the main instigators of the cross-partisan censure motion, also pointed to a whole series of budgetary riders, i.e. provisions which are not supposed to be part of this text. With in the first place, the index on the employment of seniors which is not a measurement of income or expenditure.
“Everyone knows, including the government, that this part will fall before the Constitutional Council,” said Charles de Courson. Jean-Luc Mélenchon went further, saying he was “certain” that the Elders “cancel (have) the whole procedure”.
“Their role is to protect institutions by enforcing them”, argued the leader of La France insoumise this Sunday in Le Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro, LCI.
This body advocates “the clarity and sincerity of parliamentary debate”. However, the review of the reform may question this principle. The government, in addition to 47.1 and 49.3, has used other provisions to speed up the debates such as 44.2 or 44.3. Without mentioning article 38 of the Senate, used by the senatorial majority on the right and allowing to vote an amendment, an article or even a text after two contradictory speeches. If these mechanisms are authorized, their accumulation could question the Elders.
The shared initiative referendum
If the motions of censure are rejected, the oppositions have a last weapon to reject the pension reform: the referendum of shared initiative (RIP). This constitutional provision provides for the possibility of organizing a popular consultation on a bill “on the initiative of a fifth of the members of Parliament”, i.e. at least 185 of the 925 parliamentarians and “supported by a tenth of the electors”, i.e. 4.87 million people, whose signatures must be collected within 9 months.
The last attempt at a RIP on the question of the privatization of Aéroports de Paris failed in 2019, signed by only one million people. More generally, no initiative has succeeded since the introduction of this provision in the Constitution in 2008. However, this did not prevent the left from filing a RIP this Friday so that the legal retirement age does not exceed 62 years.
However, its implementation is not guaranteed. Indeed, a referendum of shared initiative “cannot have as its object the repeal of a legislative provision promulgated less than a year ago”, provides for article 11 of the Constitution.
Therefore, if the RIP wants to have a chance to exist, it must be validated by the Constitutional Council, before the pension reform is. If this is the case, the collection of support is then organized for nine months by the Ministry of the Interior, which provides potential signatories with a digital platform. During this period, the promulgation of the law is put on hold. Either a halt of almost a year for the government.
