While the session in the Senate began this Thursday morning, before the National Assembly took over at 3 p.m., the room for maneuver seemed very narrow for the majority, who repeated that they did not want to use 49.3. Here are the three possible outcomes for the very controversial pension reform, the subject of an agreement on Wednesday in the joint committee of deputies and senators, which saw a decisive day.
Green light from the Assembly, victory for the majority
The right-wing dominated Senate is expected to pass the bill safely a second time in the morning. Then it will be the turn of the National Assembly to decide in the afternoon, after a last stand of opposition via a prior rejection motion. If Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne deems she has a certain majority on the text, thanks to the votes of enough LR deputies, she will ask for the vote. “We are reasonably up and running,” slips a government source, who is counting on the ripple effect of the compromise found between the right and the Macronists.
A green light from the Assembly would be worth definitive adoption by the Parliament, which would validate its strategy of compromise and would reinforce it to Matignon.
The left, however, is preparing an appeal to the Constitutional Council, which will delay the promulgation of the text. Measures such as the “senior index” could thus be reversed, but the Elders should not touch the heart of the reform, the decline in the legal age of departure from 62 to 64 years.
The oppositions have other cartridges. They can table a motion of censure, but that would have little chance of succeeding and could appear as a second defeat. The Socialists are also pushing for a shared initiative referendum (RIP) on pensions.
The rejected text, the slap
The left, the far right and some elected LRs ardently desire it: that the reform project be put to the vote in the Assembly and that it be challenged. “Everyone wants a moment of truth” in the majority but “yes, we can lose”, says a Renaissance executive. The previous rejection of a text resulting from an agreement in a joint committee dates back to 2009 with the Hadopi law on audiovisual.
The slap would be severe for the entire presidential camp, and especially Elisabeth Borne, who has been struggling for months to find ways through for this campaign promise by Emmanuel Macron. Would the Matignon tenant resign? Could the Head of State be tempted to dissolve the Assembly, so that a clear majority emerges? A new phase would open, heavy with uncertainties for power.
Passage in force with the 49.3
If she fears too many defections from Les Républicains or even in the presidential camp, or too low a margin, the head of government can, with Emmanuel Macron, decide to trigger article 49.3 allowing a text to be adopted without a vote. Even if this option is not desired by the government.
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“Until the last moment there will be uncertainty, and we will see what decision must be taken,” according to a government source. In order to authorize this 49.3, an exceptional meeting of the Council of Ministers may be held just before the 3 p.m. session at the Assembly.
The Prime Minister has already used 49.3 ten times in the fall on the budgets. And it would be the hundredth time that a Prime Minister has thus committed his responsibility to a text of law since the beginnings of the Fifth Republic.
The procedure is not without danger. The head of government would expose herself to motions of censure from the left alliance Nupes and the National Rally (RN), which could be debated during the weekend or early next week. Their rejection would seal the definitive adoption of the reform. But the votes are then likely to be tight, some LRs being able to add their voices, or even sign a motion. “The Prime Minister will feel the wind of the cannonball”, we say in the majority, where we also fear that the capacity to carry out reforms in the future will be greatly weakened.
In addition, a 49.3 risks rekindling the protest in the street. “It would be a democratic vice”, warned the number one of the CFDT Laurent Berger, while the Assembly would not have finally voted once for the entire reform.