Accompanied by loud protests from the opposition, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said: “This reform is necessary.” She and her government are taking responsibility, said Borne to outraged boos in the National Assembly and officially announced the application of Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which requires the adoption of a Legislation permitted without a parliamentary vote if the government survives one or more related no-confidence motions.
“We’re not sure about some votes, we can’t take the risk,” Borne explained the decision to refrain from voting in the National Assembly, which was originally planned for 3 p.m. The prime minister accused the opposition of blocking the debates.
Heated mood
The opposition now has 24 hours to table one or more motions of no confidence. The right-wing populist parliamentary group leader Marine Le Pen immediately announced a motion from her group. If the government loses the vote, it amounts to new elections. The atmosphere in the National Assembly was very heated. Some members of parliament loudly sang the national anthem, and there were numerous angry heckling.
The Senate, as the second chamber of parliament, voted early in the morning for the reform to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Approval in the National Assembly, however, did not seem certain.
Reform to close funding gaps
Currently, the retirement age in France is 62 years. In fact, retirement begins later on average: those who have not paid in long enough to receive a full pension work longer. At the age of 67 there is then a pension without any deductions, regardless of how long it has been paid in – the government wants to keep that, even if the number of years required to pay in for a full pension is to increase more quickly. She wants to increase the monthly minimum pension to around 1,200 euros. With the reform, the government wants to close an imminent gap in the pension fund.
Depends on conservatives
The center government now has to reckon with a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly. The opposition had threatened that the government should use the special article to avoid a vote in the lower house. The government does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. She relied on the support of the conservative Republicains for the reform. Until recently, however, it was unclear whether enough MPs from the split parliamentary group would approve the project. The government probably didn’t want to take that risk.
protests and strikes
The pension plans were not only extremely controversial in Parliament. The unions consider them brutal and unjust. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest for weeks. Strikes caused chaos in rail and air traffic, there were mountains of rubbish on the streets and lessons were canceled. According to the Ministry of the Interior, more than a million people took part at the peak of the protests, and the CGT trade union spoke of 3.5 million participants.
