Even if the pension reform is adopted in the Assembly this Thursday afternoon, the opposition will not admit defeat. Not yet. After the failure of the motion of censure, filed by the RN and the Nupes, the Socialists advance another pawn: the RIP, the referendum of shared initiative on pensions.
“There is no need to wait for (the presidential election of) 2027 to question (the text). All you have to do is implement the shared initiative referendum, the RIP”, explains Bernard Cazeneuve, the former Prime Minister of François Hollande, in an interview with the Tribune released Wednesday. Socialist MP Valérie Rabault had already mentioned this solution.
What does it consist of? First, one-fifth of the members of Parliament must be assembled, that is to say at least 185 of the 925 parliamentarians (577 deputies, 348 senators). The signatures are already acquired, as announced on Tuesday evening on BFMTV Stéphane Peu, communist deputy. “Article 11 of the Constitution authorizes parliamentarians to submit a bill for a referendum of shared initiative, which we are going to do. »
This regulation makes it possible to force the government to organize a referendum on a subject, in this case the pension reform. The left wants to submit to the French the principle of a retirement age “which does not exceed 62 years “. “It’s a very simple article, it doesn’t say an alternative bill, it cancels this one (from the government)”, sums up the deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis.
4.87 million voters needed
“There are still adjustments to the content of the text, but a priori we are going to launch this procedure, specified the same day on LCP the former minister Patrick Kanner, president of the PS group in the Senate. It will then be necessary for the Constitutional Council to say yes. »
The second step takes place in the Constitutional Council. The Elders, chaired by Laurent Fabius, must for example ensure that the RIP does not relate to a subject rejected by referendum less than two years ago. This is not the case.
The other constraint relates to the timetable, since parliamentarians have a very narrow window of opportunity to trigger the RIP: after the vote on the law, of course, but before its promulgation. “We had messages from the Constitutional Council saying that we had to move quickly. The government wants to promulgate this text very quickly, so we are twisting our arms a little to be ready at the beginning of next week, ”confides Patrick Kanner.
Then, as its name suggests, this referendum must be supported by one tenth of the voters, or 4.87 million people. Parliamentarians have nine months to collect signatures. A very high step, never reached before.
No RIP has been organized yet
Even if they succeed, the referendum will only have a one in two chance of being organised. Because the President of the Republic will have the obligation only if the Parliament does not examine the bill within six months. Clearly, if the National Assembly or the Senate takes up the bill within six months, the procedure stops after the examination by the two chambers, whatever the outcome.
On the left, the idea of a RIP discourages more than one, due to the length and difficulty of the procedure: since its entry into force in 2015, no parliamentary proposal has resulted in the organization of a RIP. In 2019, the bill against the privatization of the ADP group, the first RIP, had stumbled on the penultimate step by collecting a million supporters.
Bernard Cazeneuve judges however that if the law were to be adopted with the forceps of 49.3, “going back to the people would be the only possible way of appeasement”. “I really believe it is possible to block the reform by this means, provided that we have time to convince its opponents, he assures. 70% of French people say they are opposed to raising the retirement age and millions demonstrated in the streets to say so. It is therefore up to the left to propose this path. »