There were more than 20,000 amendments to the text proposed by the government, most of them from La Francia Insumisa
The pension reform goes to the French Senate after a debate without a vote in the National Assembly due to time constraints due to the thousands of amendments tabled by the left-wing party La Francia Insumisa.
French MEPs had until midnight on Friday to debate and vote on the pension reform in first reading. But after 20 days of heated debate, they were unable to investigate the controversial Article 7. This article, which is at the heart of the reform, gradually raises the minimum retirement age in France from 62 to the current 64 years from 2030, as claimed by the government.
There were more than 20,000 amendments to the text, most of them from La Francia Insumisa. Although Nupes, the alliance of left-wing parties to which La Francia Insumisa belongs, withdrew thousands of amendments this week, there was no time to study or vote on the entire text.
France Insoumise adopted the strategy of parliamentary obstruction to prevent the vote on the text in the National Assembly, which was strongly criticized by the government.
The debates ended as they began: with anger and a tense atmosphere in the room. “Gentlemen and ladies of La France Not submissive, you have insulted me for 15 days, but no one has yielded and here we are before you for the reform,” said a hoarse Olivier Dussopt, the French labor minister, after the intense debates in the National Assembly, while the deputies of La Francia Insumisa left the chamber in protest.
The senators, who begin studying the text on February 28, will have 15 days to debate the controversial pension reform. The legislature ends on March 12 at midnight. If the two chambers cannot agree on the text, the pension reform will be discussed in the joint parliamentary committee from 14 March.
After midnight, the National Assembly, as expected, rejected the no-confidence motion of National Regroupment, Marine Le Pen’s far-right party. Only the 89 far-right deputies voted for government censorship. The rest of the parliamentary parties had already announced that they would not vote on a text from the extreme right. It took at least 287 votes for it to flourish and bring down the government.
Renacimiento, President Emmanuel Macron’s party, considered that after the rejection of the motion of censure of National Regrouping, it is clear that “there is no majority (of deputies) in the National Assembly against the pension reform”.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne sharply criticized “the two populisms” of La France Unsubmissive and National Regrouping, which she regarded as “two faces of contempt for democracy”.
The head of government criticized the absence of National Regrouping deputies from the debates on the reform and their strategy to introduce a last-minute surprise vote of no confidence against the government, despite knowing it would not pass .
Borne also regretted that La Francia Insumisa, with its thousands of amendments, prevented the vote on the text in the National Assembly. He accused them of “wanting chaos in the room”, “not believing in democracy” and “making a circus out of it”. The prime minister also reproached them for resorting to insults instead of constructively discussing the reform with arguments.
The prime minister was convinced that the pension reform debates in the coming weeks will allow “enriching” the text to “guarantee the future of our pay-as-you-go system”.
Similarly, French trade unions threaten to paralyze France on March 7 if the government does not withdraw the controversial pension reform. According to a recent poll, 67 percent of the French are against the reform of President Emmanuel Macron.
Source: La Verdad
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