Macron visited the works of Notre-Dame this Friday, before the Constitutional ruling. POOL | REUTERS
The body rejects the request to force a referendum on the pension reform and only pronounces itself against some secondary measures. The unions refuse to meet on Tuesday with the president
14 abr 2023 . Updated at 10:07 p.m.
After three months of protests against the pension reform, the Constitutional Council of France put an end to the process of drafting the law this Friday. The nine scholars that make up the Council rejected the criticism of the irregularity of the procedure followed for the adoption of the law and endorsed the bulk of it and your key point: the delay of the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years of age.
However, this body censors six provisions of this corrective Social Security law in which the reform is registered, because they have no reason to appear in it, such as the so-called senior index (which forces companies with more than 300 employees to publish the list of those over 55 years) and the senior CDI (an indefinite contract for older employees).
The ruling allows Emmanuel Macron to enact the law without the censored provisions. He has two weeks to do it, but everything indicates that it will do so this weekend.
#Retreats | The @Conseil_constit judged, both on the merits and on the procedure, the reform in conformity with our Constitution.
The text comes to the end of its democratic process.
Tonight there is no winner or loser.
— Ãlisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) April 14, 2023
The prime minister, Elisabeth Borneassured that “there is no winner or loser”, but he congratulated himself because “the text reaches the end of its democratic process”, since the Council considers that the reform is in accordance with the magna carta “both in substance and in procedure » of elaboration.
The latter has been criticized on a recurring basis during these months since in order to approve the reform, the Government chose to do so through the Social Security financing law and thus prevent the debates from going on forever in the National Assembly. In fact, it is what has led the Constitutional Court to censor some provision because it considers that it should not appear in a financing law.
no referendum
The Council, whose president is from prime minister Laurent Fabiusalso rejects the request of the leftist parties to celebrate a shared initiative referendum (RIP, for its acronym in French), which would force the French government to hold a popular consultation on the pension reform. La Nupes, the leftist alliance, submitted a second referendum petition on Thursday, fearing that its first petition would be annulled as it did. The court will issue its opinion on the second application on May 3but this does not prevent the promulgation process from taking its course.
French unions, however, don’t give up. Shortly before the court’s decision was announced, Emmanuel Macron had invited union leaders and employers to a meeting next Tuesday to prepare a new cycle of reforms, and that “the door of the Élysée will remain open, without conditions, for that dialogue ». But the unions have opted for not accept the proposal.
In a statement, the union asks the president not to promulgate the law, “as the only way to calm the anger that is expressed in the country.” He also requests that as a sign of “wisdom and will to calm down” the spirits, there be a new deliberation in Parliament “as provided for in article 10 of the Constitution.” Meanwhile, the leader of the CGT, Sophie Binet, He urged his own to multiply the strikes and demonstrations until May 1, the date agreed by the inter-union to once again show the frontal rejection of the pension reform.
The opinion sets fire to the streets of France again
The deliberations of the nine Constitutional judges on Macron’s star legislative project lasted for 16 hours straight, but the agency refused to say whether or not the decision was unanimous. Be that as it may, his decision once again set the streets on fire, with spontaneous protests throughout France, and clashes between police and protesters. In Paris, for example, the most radical demonstrators burned bins and bicycles and smashed shop windows.
The ruling gives the president a break, but neither the unions nor the opposition seem willing to facilitate the years he has left at the Élysée. For the extreme right Marine Le Pen, the political future of the reform “is not closed” because it will be up to the people to “prepare the alternative” policy that reverses that law. Along the same lines, the former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchonfrom La Francia Insumisa (LFI), proclaimed that “the fight continues”, while the president of that party, Mathilde Panot, He threatened Macron that if the law is enacted “he will not be able to govern the country.”
The leader of Los Republicanos was more conciliatory, Eric Ciotti, that urged the parties to accept the decision of the Constitutional Court. He agrees with the Government that it is an “essential” reform, regardless of the “method errors” that may have been made during the process. However, one of his colleagues, the conservative deputy Lot Aurélien Pradié, pointed out that the “political crisis remains.” “The wounds are open in the country”he added.