A “republican procession”, composed of left-wing elected officials wearing their tricolor scarf, will march through the streets of Paris on Tuesday April 4, from the National Assembly to the Elysée Palace. Faced with a government that turned a deaf ear, the Communists undertook to organize this demonstration, for which authorization was requested. The departure was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. and the invitation sent to the 252 parliamentarians who signed the shared initiative referendum (RIP) against the pension reform. The elected representatives of La France insoumise (LFI) have already assured their presence, while environmentalists and socialists must speak out.
At the end of this 1.5 kilometer journey, the parliamentarians wish to return ” in person “ to Emmanuel Macron a letter asking him to ” to withdraw ” its plan to postpone the legal retirement age to 64, justifying their request by “considerable mobilization of the people” et “the opposition of parliamentarians”. But this march also seems intended to compensate for the refusal of LFI and the Communists to respond favorably to the invitation of the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, who has planned to meet all the presidents of the parliamentary groups next week. “We believe that Emmanuel Macron is in control”, affirms the president of the communist group in the National Assembly, André Chassaigne. Same position for the “rebellious”.
“Giving the voice back to the people”
Without illusions about what Mr. Macron’s response to their letter could be, the elected representatives of the left are betting on another initiative to put pressure on the President of the Republic: that of the RIP, filed on March 20 before the Constitutional Council. . Knowing that this institution has one month to decide on the admissibility of the request from the left. “The priority remains the withdrawal of the text. But we have to give the floor back to the people”believes André Chassaigne.
In Matignon, we think that this RIP, which includes a single article aimed at enshrining in the law that the retirement age “cannot be fixed beyond 62 years of age”, will be revoked. But the constitutionalist Bertrand Mathieu considers it admissible. In his view, it fulfills the three conditions imposed by the Constitutional Council: no other law on pensions dates from less than a year ago; it is a social policy, which does not increase public spending; finally, the text includes more than 185 signatures of parliamentarians. The only risk is the writing of the article. “The Council can say that the legislator cannot impose obligations on himself, because he is always free”, assesses the Constitutionalist.
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