A deletion. A crumpled text, thrown into oblivion. The dream of many protesters. Is it possible to repeal the pension reform, now that it has been enacted and validated by the Constitutional Council? Yes, according to the centrist group Liot, already at the initiative of a cross-partisan motion of censure of the government which had failed by 9 votes.
These parliamentarians are “seriously considering” putting on the agenda of the National Assembly a bill to repeal the pension reform, indicated this Tuesday, April 18 to AFP and the Parisian a group source. “We are going to restore power to Parliament and we will win”, even announced the boss of the group Bertrand Pancher to the Parisian.
The French legislative framework indeed provides that a law can be undone… by another legislative text, of “equal force” or superior. Thus, the National Assembly can propose a law, relating to the retirement law, or, more subtly on article 7 which crystallizes the debates by pushing back the retirement age to 64 years.
This bill only needs a simple majority to be approved, unlike a motion of censure which requires an absolute majority. There are two types of repeals: express repeal: a law that is intended solely to repeal another. Or tacit repeal: a law that confirms provisions incompatible with previous provisions.
Socialist parliamentarians had already proposed a text to this effect in the wake of the partial validation of the Constitutional Council, to repeal the reform promulgated on Friday by Emmanuel Macron. But bad timing. They do not have the opportunity to dictate the agenda for a day in the lower house before the next ordinary session, while the Assembly has successive “parliamentary niches”, times when the opposition is master of the order of the texts.
Many cases in the past
The Liot deputies will have to file the texts that will constitute their niche by April 20, according to a source in the group. The possible proposal will then have to be validated by the services of the Assembly to be able to appear in the niche of the group. “You have to remember that no one voted on Article 7 in the Assembly, we really think we can win,” says a source within the group. Answer: late spring.
In the past, many laws have been repealed in this way. When François Hollande came to power in 2012, his majority hastened to repeal the VAT increase voted by Nicolas Sarkozy. In 1886, the right defeated the nationalizations passed in 1981 by the government of François Mitterrand.
On another note, in 2019 and 2022, two laws were facilitated the repeal of obsolete laws. These have made it possible in particular to repeal 150 texts adopted between 1941 and 1980, “no longer responding in any way to the canons of the law”. If repealing a law is not unprecedented, such a setback probably would be. However, obtaining a majority against the pension reform would represent a challenge for the opposition.
