The text on pension reform has taken a step, but there are still several before its possible final adoption. After the vote by the Senate on Saturday evening, a decisive and high-risk week opens for the government and the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.
The flagship project of the second five-year term of the Head of State will continue a legislative course strewn with pitfalls. But it could, if the stars align optimally for the government, be finally passed as early as Thursday.
Wednesday, joint committee
Negotiations for the post-Senate have already started behind the scenes and they will be in full swing on Wednesday from 9 a.m. in the Joint Joint Committee (CMP). This CMP brings together seven deputies, seven senators and as many alternates in a closed room at the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the Senate. The government is not present, but can pull the strings. The objective of the CMP is to reach a compromise on the measures that the Assembly and the Senate have not voted on in the same terms.
But the deputies, faced with the obstruction of part of the left, could not come to the end in February of the examination of the reform, and did not adopt it. This means that the discussion on Wednesday will be broad, even if the heart of the text, the decline in the starting age from 62 to 64, will not move. It will also be at the center of a new day of mobilization of opponents at the very moment when this meeting will be held.
Presidential and right camp have the hand in CMP, with respectively five and four holders each, including Olivier Marleix, boss of the LR deputies who will have a tight rein.
Thursday, the final vote?
In the best of scenarios for the executive power, if deputies and senators reach an agreement in CMP, this must be validated Thursday, March 16 from 9 a.m. in the Senate, then 3 p.m. in the National Assembly. This last vote, if it is positive, will be worth definitive adoption by the Parliament.
But the executive is counting and recounting its troops at the Palais Bourbon, as well as the LR votes on which it can count, in the absence of an absolute majority for the macronists. Especially since some of them are hesitant, like the former minister Barbara Pompili who does not want to vote for the reform, despite the risk of being excluded from the Renaissance group.
“It can be played with two or three votes, in one direction or another”, slips a parliamentarian. Will the head of government Elisabeth Borne take the risk of rejection? His position is at stake, and, beyond that, those of the deputies themselves, Emmanuel Macron having repeatedly raised the threat of dissolution.
The Prime Minister “will negotiate until the end to have a majority”, according to a government source. And if not, it will resort to the constitutional weapon of 49.3 to have the text adopted without a vote. The heavy decision to have this 49.3 under the elbow will have to be taken on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, or Thursday during an exceptional Council at the Elysée, the seat of the presidency.
Motions of censure could prolong the suspense
A 49.3 would not go unanswered. The deputies of the left alliance Nupes and those of the RN, even opponents of other groups, will be able to table motions of censure of the government. The procedure is now well established, after the ten 49.3 in the fall of 2022 on the budgets: the motions would be debated on Saturday afternoon at the earliest. The reform project would be considered adopted, unless one of these motions is voted on, a very unlikely hypothesis, due to the lack of votes from the right.
Even without 49.3, the oppositions have the possibility of attempting to overthrow the government by a vote of no confidence. They should not hesitate to do so, on the occasion of this flagship reform at the start of Macron’s second five-year term. Finally, they have already planned to seize the Constitutional Council.
A limit set for March 26
Another scenario exists, but it is less likely. This is a failure of the mixed parity commission. The ensuing parliamentary shuttle would be squeezed into a tight schedule, due to the executive’s choice to go through an amending Social Security budget to have the reform adopted. The Parliament must indeed decide in total in 50 days, that is to say by March 26 at midnight, failing which the provisions of the reform can be implemented by ordinance by the government, provides for the Constitution. It never happened.