It was in tension and confusion rarely observed at the Luxembourg Palace that the president of Les Républicains (LR) of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, closed the session at 3:25 a.m., in full examination of article 7 of the reform of the retreats, on the night of Tuesday 7 to Wednesday 8 March.
Around 7 p.m. Tuesday, the senators had nevertheless calmly begun discussions on this key article of the Social Security amending financing bill devoting the decline in the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A tacit agreement between the senatorial majority, the left and Gérard Larcher thus provided that at the end of the day of mobilization, the Senate could debate the heart of the reform.
But shortly after 1 a.m., the Senate session finally went off the rails. The choice of the senatorial majority of the right and the center to accelerate the discussions by the unprecedented use of article 38 of the regulations to achieve a faster vote on article 7 provoked the fury of the left groups, who have left the hemicycle. The socialist, communist and ecologist senators in unison denounce the “manoeuvres” of the senatorial majority, under the authority of Gérard Larcher.
“I think the senatorial right is entering an infernal machine that is overwhelming it, including in terms of image”, criticized the president of the socialist group, Patrick Kanner, before leaving the hemicycle in the company of all the senators on the left. Faced with this movement, Gérard Larcher temporizes: “I hope that we have a debate but that we do not caricaturate the attitude of our assembly. » Senators will resume consideration of Clause 7, and its remaining 75 amendments, Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
“We wonder if they have not caught the Nupes virus”
During these first days of debates at the Luxembourg Palace on the pension reform, the left found itself in a gray area between the fierce defense of thousands of amendments and an obvious obstruction, deplored by the right, which is walled in silence to vote on the 20 articles of the bill by March 12 at midnight. “We were elected not to form discussion groups, but to vote”lectured the president of the LR group, Bruno Retailleau, considering that “Obstruction is to Parliament what desertion is to the soldier”. “The senatorial left has been walking us for five days. We wonder if they have not caught the virus of Nupes “, takes offense the president of the centrist group, Hervé Marseille, in reference to the debates on the text in the National Assembly.
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