“You had your chance at scratching, and at the draw (..) behind, that you came to tell us in 3rd session, we could hold a referendum, no it will not work”. Olivier Véran did not mince his words this Tuesday evening on BFMTV, in front of Jordan Bardella (RN) and Mathilde Panot (LFI). “We are ready to seek out opposition MPs who wish to work on the substance of the text”. Olivier Véran wants a majority in the National Assembly for the vote on the pension reform and “not to go until 49.3”, he also added.
It must be said that the RN and the Nupes had set fire to the powder this morning. The deputies Nupes and RN have indeed filed requests for a referendum on the pension reform project, one of them to be examined on February 6, at the start of the debates in the National Assembly, indicated these opposition groups.
The LFI group will defend on the same date a motion of preliminary rejection of the text, a more traditional procedure. A draw took place Tuesday at the Assembly in favor of the motion of this group, only one being able to be put to the vote, we learned from parliamentary sources, confirming information from the JDD. Rejection motions stop the examination of a text, while “referendum motions” aim to suspend it in order to submit the project to a referendum.
At the initiative of the Communists, a hundred deputies from the left alliance submitted their request for a referendum, then the RN deputies. But only one of these motions will be put to the vote of the Assembly, before the general discussion on the bill – the selection has not yet been made.
Strongly opposed to the postponement to 64 of the legal retirement age, like the whole of the left alliance, the national secretary of the PCF Fabien Roussel assured Tuesday on CNews that “the government has chosen the blockage and confrontation”. “We have to come out on top of this crisis. This is the reason why we are proposing to give the floor back to the people and to do so by means of a referendum”, he underlined.
La Nupes recalls “Macron” about his remarks between the two rounds
The four leaders of Nupes in the Assembly, André Chassaigne (PCF), Mathilde Panot (LFI), Boris Vallaud (PS) and Cyrielle Chatelain (EELV) signed the motion. “A referendum is a real democratic obligation”, they justify in the explanatory memorandum.
The RN group led by Marine Le Pen, also opposed to the government project, wants for its part “to restore its letters of nobility to popular sovereignty by giving the choice to the French to decide on the future of the social model of their country”, according to a statement. “Besides, the President of the Republic himself had mentioned, during the interval between the presidential elections, the possibility of having his reforms validated by the direct vote of the French in a referendum,” he notes. .
If one or the other managed to have their “referendum motion” voted on on February 6 by the Assembly, which is far from being won, it would be immediately transmitted to the Senate which should decide within 30 days. But even if adopted by both chambers, it is only a referendum proposal made to the President, free or not to follow up.