Nearly 7,000 amendments to the pension reform project have been tabled for examination in committee at the National Assembly, a parliamentary source said on Thursday (January 26th). A figure which compromises the possibility for the deputies to go to the end of the text within the time limits.
The Social Affairs Committee is looking into this highly inflammable reform from Monday. Even if some amendments could be deemed inadmissible, their overall number makes it very difficult to examine the text in its entirety before it arrives in the Chamber on 6 February.
But the deputies of the left-wing Nupes coalition tabled a very large number of amendments: 3,345 amendments for La France insoumise (LFI), 1,282 for the ecologists, 1,053 for the socialists. However, this is much less than during the previous pension reform, for which the “rebellious” alone tabled 19,000 amendments in committee and 23,000 in session. The Republicans (LR) carry a total of 617 amendments, and the National Rally (RN), 75. In the majority, Renaissance has a hundred, the MoDem and Horizons, forty each.
Fifty days to decide
The flurry of amendments focus on Article 7 of the bill, to oppose en bloc the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years. And the lawsuits for obstruction will not fail to fuse. “We could have tabled as many amendments as the number of lives that this reform will destroy, but we hope that the heart of this counter-reform, the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 provided for in the 7 of the bill, be addressed in our debates”justifies the Nupes in a statement.
The timetable for reviewing the reform is tight. The deputies have twenty days for the first reading of the text, between passage in committee and in the Hemicycle, where the exchanges must begin on Monday February 6 and end on the 17 at midnight, so that the text then passes to the Senate.
After the parliamentary break from February 20 to 26, the Senate, dominated by the right, will examine the text adopted by the Assembly, or failing that, the initial text of the government modified by the amendments that the Assembly will have had time to vote and to which the executive will be favourable. The senators will have fifteen days.
Then deputies and senators will try to agree in a joint committee. If there is agreement, it must be validated by both chambers. Otherwise the text will make a last shuttle, and the Assembly will have the last word.
The Parliament must decide in total in fifty days, that is to say by March 26 at midnight, failing which the provisions of the reform can be implemented by ordinance, as provided for in the Constitution. It never happened.