He regrets neither his gesture nor the sermons that followed. “I said I would, I did. “assumes Erwan Balanant, MoDem MP for Finistère. This Thursday, March 16, a little after 3 p.m., Elisabeth Borne is addressing parliamentarians to have the very unpopular pension reform adopted, without a vote, via the use of 49.3, which she had nevertheless sworn to avoid. The time is no longer up to you. After counting and recounting the votes, a ballot is deemed too risky. “We cannot bet on the future of our pensions”, explains the Prime Minister under the boos of the opposition. For Erwan Balanant, it’s too much. He leaves, followed by a handful of colleagues who are nevertheless members, like him, of the presidential majority.
“It was not a gesture of humor, but the fruit of a deep reflection on our democracy. I do not believe that it is with a blow of 49.3 that we will answer the questions that the French are asking “, loose the deputy secretary general of the MoDem, party of François Bayrou, ally of the first hour of Emmanuel Macron.
The day after the thunderclap felt at the Palais-Bourbon, a deep bitterness arose within the presidential camp. Whether they are members of the MoDem, of Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe and even of Renaissance, that of the head of state, the elected officials do not digest the coup de force. “MPs have a bitter taste in their throats”confirms Laurent Marcangeli, the leader of the Horizons deputies. “For parliamentarians who have fought for weeks on this text, obviously it is a frustration”, points out Aurore Bergé, her counterpart at Renaissance, who points out that almost 100% of the deputies of the presidential party were ready to go to the vote, even if it meant losing it. Being the spokesperson for these elected officials, the deputy for Yvelines defended until the last minute before Emmanuel Macron the idea of a ballot, convinced that at the end of the day, the elected officials of the Les Républicains (LR) party who lacked to reach the majority, would have rallied, anxious to remain consistent with the DNA of the right.
“We may not all agree with the president”
“Put the LR deputies before their responsibilities? It’s bad to know them.” sighs Eric Woerth, Renaissance deputy for Oise and former LR. “We idealize the world. Obviously it was better to go to the vote. That’s why the president waited. But the question is simple: what is the interest of the country? This interest overlooks the contingencies. It was not possible that the RN [Rassemblement national] and LFI [La France insoumise] pride themselves on the corpse of a stillborn reform”defends the quaestor of the Assembly, among the few to have willingly accepted 49.3. “We may not all agree with the president”slips Jean-Paul Mattei, president of the MoDem group, assuring that “if we lost, the reform was not finished, we resumed contact with the social partners and we proposed something else”.
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