The debates which promise to be under very high tension in the hemicycle should highlight deputies unknown to the general public.
The deputies seize this Monday of the pension reform project, which provides in particular for a decline in the legal age of departure to 64 years, against 62 years today. After very tough discussions in the Social Affairs Commission, several elected representatives of the presidential majority will step up to defend the text. The oppositions will seek on their side to score points. Here are the main faces that will animate the debates in the hemicycle.
• Stephanie Rist
Very discreet, this Renaissance deputy from Loiret is the rapporteur of the text for the presidential majority. This rheumatologist has so far played the card of roundness with the oppositions.
“When you have more than one in two people who don’t feel good about their job, obviously if you tell them ‘we’re going to have to work two more years’, it’s very brutal,” she said. acknowledged on Thursday.
The rapporteur says she wants to avoid recourse to 49.3 on this text: she “really hopes that we can go all the way” during the debates in the hemicycle, while three days of examination in committee did not allow go further than the first two articles of the text – which contains twenty in all. The deputies must thus examine some 20,000 amendments by February 17 at midnight.
• Fadila Khattabi
This former member of the Socialist Party, then passed under the Macronist fold in 2017, is president of the Social Affairs Committee. It was she who arbitrated the proceedings for three days last week in this instance. Before this ordeal by fire, she explained on France Inter that this pension reform, “we do not do it with lightheartedness, we do it because we are responsible vis-à-vis the French”. She advanced as “objective”, the safeguard of “our pension system which is based on intergenerational solidarity”.
During the debates in committee, the member for Côte d’Or led tense exchanges. We have regularly seen him reframe his colleagues and above all raise his voice against La France insoumise. A lively exchange with Rachel Kéké, during which she mocked Jean-Luc Mélenchon, could set the tone for her speeches in the hemicycle.
• Patrick Vignal
Like Barbara Pompili, Patrick Vignal is one of the few members of the majority who do not wish to vote for the reform as it stands. “If it does not change, I will not pass this law,” he announced in mid-January.
“On the other hand, if I vote against, I will leave the group,” he said.
The deputy for Hérault, a former member of the Socialist Party, wants a project that is not “coercive” but “incentive” and calls for “improving the text”. In particular, he calls for measures for the employment of seniors. “How can we extend the contribution period for seniors when we know that often, in large companies, they are given an exit ticket. They remain jobseekers for two years and retire?” he questioned.
• Rachel Keke
Alongside Mathilde Panot or François Ruffin, Rachel Kéké, elected in June under the label La France insoumise, will be one of the speakers of the LFI group. She wants to put the spotlight on the issue of women. The question of hardship, chopped careers and the minimum pension of 1200 euros should also occupy his interventions. Rachel Kéké has already described them several times as “conflicts”.
The elected representative of Seine-Saint-Denis has already distinguished herself by several interventions in the Social Affairs Committee, during which she accused the majority of “despising seniors, women, the disabled”. “Have you already made 40 beds?” Have you already done the cleaning?”, she asked, referring to her experience as a chambermaid at the Ibis des Batignolles hotel, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.
• Hadrian Clouet
Hadrien Clouet, a rebellious 31-year-old deputy, is one of the leaders of his training on pension reform. This sociologist, specialist in employment and work, has already distinguished himself previously as one of the main speakers of his group during the examination of the reform of unemployment insurance.
With some 13,000 amendments tabled by LFI, the elected representative of Haute-Garonne assures that he does not want to “slow down the debates” but “force the government to explain itself on each article of its bill”.
• Pierre Dharreville
The communist deputy from Bouches-du-Rhône will be at the forefront of his group to oppose the executive’s project, alongside his comrades Sébastien Jumel and Yannick Monnet.
Even before the debates started, Pierre Dharéville distinguished himself during the hearing of Olivier Dussopt in the Social Affairs Committee. The elected official said to the Minister of Labour:
“You are in a bad position, I don’t understand what you are still doing there… You have to go back with your reform under your arm”.
• Véronique Louwagie
LR deputy since 2012, Véronique Louwagie is one of the figures of the right that counts, despite her relative media discretion. In a party that lost Éric Woerth, one of its best public finance specialists, now at Renaissance, the elected official from Orne would have seen herself as president of the Finance Committee. Beaten by the rebellious Éric Coquerel, she finally inherited one of the four vice-presidencies of this body.
Véronique Louwagie says she wants to defend the system of “pay-as-you-go pension scheme” and deplores “a communication problem at government level” on her bill. She claims to be “favorable to a pension reform”, on condition of “correcting a certain number of points which are perhaps holes in the racket or which have not been appreciated at their fair value”.
• Thomas Menage
Spokesperson for the National Rally, Thomas Ménagé became a deputy this summer in Loiret by winning against the former Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer. Rapporteur of his group on pensions, he wants to make the far right the first opponent of the reform and qualifies the members of Nupes “useful government idiots”.
The RN deputy here is targeting the nearly 13,000 amendments tabled by LFI, against only some 200 for his group. Asked in recent days on Radio France, he fugstigated “parliamentary obstruction”, “a stupid trap, because it gives the government the excuse to use 49.3, to say that the oppositions are not constructive”. Promises him “a few surprises” from the RN during the examination of the text in the hemicycle.
