Ten months after the start of a legislature hitherto subject to upheavals, paralysis awaits the National Assembly. Weakened by the use of Article 49.3 of the Constitution to have the pension reform adopted without a vote, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, is continuing her interviews with the political forces, in accordance with the request of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to elaborate “a new roadmap” parliamentarian and “to enlarge the majority”. Its consultation cycle ends this week with the president of the National Rally (RN) group, Marine Le Pen, received Tuesday at Matignon, then with representatives of local elected officials, Wednesday.
As in the aftermath of the June 2022 legislative elections, the government seems to be at an impasse for the rest of the five-year term. After the examination of the pension reform, which has reinforced the fractures of this National Assembly already fragmented into ten groups, to whom can the executive turn to form a stable and legible majority? When the president of the Les Républicains (LR) group, Olivier Marleix, says he does not want “climb on the Titanic »the presidents of the socialist groups in the Assembly and the Senate, Boris Vallaud and Patrick Kanner, wrote on April 6 to Mme Terminal to pose as a prerequisite for any discussion the withdrawal of the decried reform. “You will not be able to turn the page, propose a new method or open a new sequence”, warn the two socialists.
If the decision of the Constitutional Council on the pension reform, expected Friday, April 14, will put an end to the “democratic journey” of the text, in the words of Mr. Macron, the oppositions do not intend to stop there. “If the pension reform is validated by the Constitutional Council and then promulgated, I do not see how we can continue to work in good conditions for the next four years”believes Bertrand Pancher, president of the centrist group Freedom, Independents, Overseas and Territories (LIOT), at the origin of the motion of censure which failed by nine votes, on March 20.
Divisions on the right… and on the left
The chaotic review of the pension reform had the effect of a cluster bomb in the various blocs formed in the Assembly, with the exception of the RN. A situation which complicates the task of the Prime Minister, always in search of reliable interlocutors capable of involving their respective groups. The continuous attacks of certain LR deputies, despite the agreement reached on the pension reform by the president of the party, Eric Ciotti, and Mme Borne, and the vote of the motion of censure to overthrow the government by nineteen of them will leave deep traces on the right.
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