Several amendments were retained, in particular in favor of mothers and the employment of seniors. The senators, mostly on the right, completed on Tuesday the examination in committee of the very controversial pension reform project. The senators will now meet on Thursday afternoon for the kick-off of the debates in the hemicycle.
Deprived of a vote of the National Assembly by the obstruction of the deputies of La France insoumise, the executive counts on the Senate to confer democratic legitimacy on a reform which two thirds of the French (66%) do not want, d ‘after an Odoxa survey. The next day of mobilization, March 7, promises to be very popular and all the SNCF unions are calling for a strike that can be extended from this date.
“This country is dying of reforms that are never made”
The president of the Social Affairs Committee Catherine Deroche (LR), like the general rapporteur Élisabeth Doineau (centrist) and the rapporteur for the Old Age branch René-Paul Savary (LR), assume their responsibilities by supporting an unpopular reform. “This country is dying of reforms that are never done,” declared Catherine Deroche to the press, who wants “young people to be able to have a pay-as-you-go pension system that holds up”.
The rapporteurs’ amendments, presented in committee on Tuesday, will have to be voted on again in session, as required by the rule applicable to budgetary texts. One, considered essential by the right, aims to grant a “bonus” to mothers who have a full career. The senators also propose a new CDI formula, exempt from family contributions, to facilitate the hiring of unemployed seniors.
Terminal more unpopular than ever
The executive has multiplied in recent days the gestures of openness towards the right. “I hope that the Senate can enrich” the text, said Emmanuel Macron on Saturday at the Agricultural Show. “We will listen to the Senate’s proposals and we will find a way together”, abounded Monday Elisabeth Borne whose popularity rating shows a further drop of two points in February, to 29% according to the Odoxa poll.
In the street, the inter-union called “to seize March 8, international day of struggle for women’s rights, to denounce everywhere the major social injustice of this pension reform against women”. In the Senate, the debates will end on March 12. If at midnight, the senators have not voted on the entire text, it will still be sent to a joint joint committee, which brings together seven deputies and seven senators.