Another strike in France against Emmanuel Macron’s plan to reform the retirement age

With a new doctors’ strike underway in France and another general force movement for next Thursday that can be redirected, the controversial pension reform has opened another chapter in the French National Assembly.

Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne called several trade unionists on Sunday. Now, after a Monday of transactions and discussions, the left-wing opposition centered on Nupes is withdrawing a thousand amendments to speed up debates on whether or not the French go to work until they’re 64.

Elisabeth Borne had asked on Monday evening for the amendments presented by France Insumisa to be withdrawn, denouncing a parliamentary “obstacle”.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had asked, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, for the “withdrawal of the amendments, which have no other purpose than to hinder and delay” the examination of the reform bill, as well as an end to “rants”.

Even if the debates will end on Friday evening in the Chamber, the prime minister believes so “the French deserve better” and that “many of the amendments are there simply to prevent the debate from moving forward”.

“We really want there to be a democratic debate about this text, so that we can discuss argument against argument, project against project,” he explained.

no amendment

Under pressure from the government and the opposition, the coalition of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (NUPES) announced on Monday evening that it was withdrawing “a thousand amendments” to move forward in examining the pension reform. After this announcement, MPs still had more than 14,000 amendments to consider.

The amendments are the way to block the parliamentary discussion and use them as a transaction element in negotiation.

In the afternoon, the Green deputies were the first to let it be known, through the voice of Sandrine Rousseau, that they wanted to “withdraw the amendments” in order to “advance” the examination of the text. An announcement made shortly after a new incident on the benches in the Hemicycle, which delayed the discussions.

Earlier in the evening, the deputy of France Unsubmissive (LFI) Aurélien Saintoul accused the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, of to be an “imposter” and a “murderer”immediately causing the sitting to be suspended and arousing the disapproval of all seats in the Assembly.

Returning to the Hemicycle, after having seen his statements unanimously condemned, the one elected presented his apologies to the Minister, who accepted them, and was sanctioned with a call to order in the minutes.

This incident comes a week after another “rebel” MP, Thomas Portes, was handed a fifteen-day ban from the Assembly, following a photo posted on Twitter, in which he acted with his foot resting on a ball with the effigy of Mr. Dussopt.

The two episodes thus feed the opinion of the majority and of the opposition towards France Unsubmissive, part of NUPES, both in the tones used by their deputies in the Chamber as in his parliamentary method.