2023-06-12 21:02:34
The motion of censure presented by the Nupes, the alliance of left-wing parties, against the French government for the pension reform was rejected today by the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament. In total, 239 deputies voted in favor of the motion, collecting 48 fewer votes than the 287 needed to be adopted by an absolute majority.
It was the last letter that the opposition had in its possession to try to knock down the pension reform, which has raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 years in France. The reform, which has found strong opposition in the streets, will therefore enter into force in September, according to the planned schedule.
The failure of the motion of censure of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) was expected. It was clear that they did not have enough votes to bring down the government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Without the support of the deputies of Los Republicanos (moderate right) the motion of censure was doomed to failure, as it has been.
The deputies of the alliance of left-wing parties – La Francia Insumisa, the Socialist Party, the French Communist Party and Europe Ecology-The Greens – voted in favor of the motion of no confidence, as did the 88 deputies of National Regrouping, the party far-right of Marine Le Pen. Only two deputies from the centrist and regionalist parliamentary group LIOT (Freedom, Independents, Overseas and Territories) voted on this occasion in favor of censuring the Borne government.
“Most of the parliamentarians of the LIOT group have not voted in favor of the motion of no confidence, simply because this motion had no chance of being approved,” explained Bertrand Pancher, head of this small parliamentary group, in statements on television.
On March 20, LIOT presented its own motion of no confidence, but it also fell short of votes. In total, 278 deputies voted in favor of LIOT’s motion, nine votes short of the 287 needed for it to be adopted by an absolute majority.
Since Élisabeth Borne arrived in Matignon in May 2022, the opposition has filed 17 motions of no confidence against her government, none of which have been adopted. “I would like that after 17 motions of censure, we can move on to something else,” said Fadila Khattabi, deputy for Renacimiento, Emmanuel Macron’s party.
Submitting a motion of no confidence is the opposition’s way of expressing its disapproval of the government. In the Fifth Republic, only once a motion of no confidence led to the resignation of the Government. It happened in 1962 with the vote of no confidence against the government of George Pompidou. The motion had been presented by deputies opposed to the reform proposed by General Charles de Gaulle: the election of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage.
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