France: Emmanuel Macron’s government managed to get around a motion of no confidence in its plan to raise the retirement age

The motion of censure for the general anger against the pension reform in France it was won by the government by Emanuele Macron. The reform was imposed with only 9 votes, not voted in Parliament thanks to the 49.3 mechanism.

He didn’t get the 287 votes needed to fall. That means many conservative Republican members voted for the motion. A great and rare surprise, which suggests that there could be serious radicalization in the country.

Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne won, with a “lo Pyrro” victory, but its management is doomedin the midst of this brutal political, social and economic crisis in France. Macronism’s benches were deserted when the president needed them most.

In a side hall, which was not the National Assembly hall, the deputies voted, after hearing the prime minister call “a compromise” and ensure that “Democracy will have its last word.”

The pension reform has been accepted but will be elevated to the Constitutional Council, that you will have to decide on its legality.

Opposition to the reform

Borne will have to leave office sooner or later for President Macron to find a way of reconciliation in a raging country, with renewed strikes, with streets overflowing with garbage and the unions once again defeated in marches by a new fury, stronger than that of the Vests Detective stories.

80 percent of the population opposes this reform, that no government has historically been able to achieve.

With the left of the LFI leaving the compound, Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne responded to the opposition’s accusations: “Their attitudes are serious. All excesses are allowed. No one has the monopoly to speak on behalf of the people, I am aware of the state of mind in our country,” said the Prime Minister.

Borne accused the NUPES left of “denying the role of Parliament” and accused LFI of “judging the street as more legitimate”.

The two motions of censureagainst the government of Elisabeth Borne were voted this Monday in the National Assembly. The debates began in the afternoon, in a tense atmosphere, with barriers around the National Assembly.

MEPs considered two motions of censure. One of the National Group (RN), which represents the populist Marine Le Pen, the other. The other was transpartisan, from the Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-Mer and Territories group (Liot) and from the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes).

It took 258 votes to bring down the government and at least 32 votes from conservative Republican lawmakers, who voted split, a difference of only 9 votes. But it was not enough to overthrow Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne, already demolished politically but who reacted after the incendiary speeches of the opposition. The risk now is a major dismemberment among Republicans.

Even if he won, he lost. It will be replaced say some from Economy Minister Bruno le Maire, to oxygenate a government that will have to make peace with the country and also with the voters who elected it.

If the reform led to the overthrow of the government, the rejection of the pension reform would also have been buried. However, the executive would maintain the possibility of submitting the text to a new reading in both chambers of Parliament, as envisaged by the procedure for a text drawn up in a joint commission (Cmp).

Macron, silent

The head of state has kept silent about the application of 49.3. He finally called the leaders of the National Assembly and the Senate by telephone on Sunday.

Macron said he wanted the reform “to reach the end of its democratic path” and expressed himself “government mobilization” to “protect” MPs subjected to violence this Sunday. This means that the reform could be submitted to the Constitutional Council, so that it can decide whether it is legal or not, in an accelerated process that would take 8 days and normally takes between 15 days and a month.

Charles de Corson, a centrist deputy from the Loire, led this motion of no confidence in the independentists.

”The Liot group decided this vote of no confidence because we defend a decentralized French society, a social republic, a free society, which allows everyone to choose their own life. We talked about the denial of democracy. The government has tried to double down on parliamentary debate. I want to insist on the seriousness of this moment. Our decision was not taken lightly,” she said.

The president of the pro-independence group LIOT, Bertrand Pancher “does not aspire to chaos” but “Stop the reform. By presenting a “transversal motion of censure” he responds to the criticisms of the ruling Renacimiento party, which accuses the opposition “of throwing fuel on the fire in a very troubled social context”.

A few hours before the vote of the no-confidence motion against the government, LFI MP François Ruffin told BFMTV that “the real no-confidence motion, which lasts for months and months, is a no-confidence motion against the people”. He recalls the significant opposition of the population to this reform.

stopped by the strike

Three deputies of RN, heading to the Assembly, they were halted by the air traffic controllers’ strikewhich continues in this renewed strike .

Joëlle Mélin, RN deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône, deplored on her Twitter account the strike of the controllers, “very protected by their pensions”, which delayed their flight to reach Paris.

According to her, and like two of her colleagues (Romain Baubry and Christian Gérard), this delay could prevent them from voting motions of no confidence in the assembly.

Opponents of the pension reform and the use of the 49.3 continue their mobilization this Monday in many cities in France.

In the Bouches du Rhône, 50% of gas stations were affected this Monday morning due to lack of fuel. The prefecture of Vaucluse decided on Monday to limit the sale of fuel at service stations in the department, up to and including Thursday, to avoid “harmful preventive purchases”.

The left

A supporter of a Sixth Republic, like her party La France Insumisa (LFI), Mathilde Panot believes that “the Fifth Republic is out of breath”. “You have a republican king, a republican monarch who can continue to impose a project alone against an entire people”, she denounced the pension reform. How far will it go? What is Emmanuel Macron’s goal? Do you want to put the country on fire to save your ego?”He wondered.

For Panot, the no-confidence motion is “the only way for deputies to say that they are against retirement at 64”. In his speech he compared the French president to Caligula and Nero.

“If the Borne government falls, the French will be relieved”, according to Matilde Panot, president of the Lfi group, in Parliament.

Panot accused Macron of “forcing a bill that nobody wants in the country”. He put pressure on the parliamentarians and in particular on those on the right, whose election was decisive: “Each of the deputies will have to reason with his own conscience. Voting on this no-confidence motion is the only way for deputies to say that they are against the retirement at 64”, judged the group leader of the rebel deputies.

MP Aurore Berge defended the government. He accused the non-submissive France “of being a launch base” for Marine le Pen in 2027. He He regretted a motion of no confidence to stop the country.

Macron, isolated and in the trash

A photo on protest posters and France networks shows the president Emmanuel Macron sitting on a pile of rubbish. It is not only a reference to the rubbish that is not collected in Paris during the strike, but also to what many French people think of their leader.

Macron hoped his push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 would cement his legacy as president, one that transformed the French economy for the 21st century. Instead, he finds his leadership questioned.both in parliament and on the streets of big cities.

His authoritarian move to force a pension reform bill without a vote infuriated the political opposition. It could hamper his government’s ability to pass legislation for the remaining four years of his term.

Since becoming president in 2017, Macron has often been accused of arrogance and being out of touch with his company. he is perceived as “the president of the rich” and suggested that some French workers were “lazy”.

“Now, the Macron government has been alienating citizens ‘for a long time’, using the special authority it has under Article 49.3 of the French Constitution to enforce highly unpopular change,” said Brice Teinturier, deputy director general of the institute for Ipsos polls.

He said the only winners in the situation are far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her National Gathering party, “which continues its strategy of ‘getting respectable’ and oppose Macron,” and French unions.

With the city of Luz littered with rubbish and smelly, many in Paris blame Macron, not the striking workers, where garbage collectors are cheered on at marches.

Macron has repeatedly said that he is convinced that the French pension system it had to be changed to keep it funded. He believes that other proposed options, such as increasing the already heavy tax burden, would alienate investors and that cutting pensions for current retirees was not a realistic alternative.

Public displays of discontent can weigh heavily on your future decisions. The spontaneous, sometimes violent protests that erupted in Paris have overwhelmed those of the trade unions, which serve as emotional containers of protest and are peaceful.

It is the anarchists of the Black Bloc and the new most ultras Yellow Vests who are leading them now and they have symbolically chosen Place de la Concorde, where the French revolution beheaded Macron the re-election for a second term last April has strengthened his position as a protagonist in Europe . He campaigned on a pro-business agenda, pledging to tackle pensions and saying the French they have to “work longer”.

In June, Macron’s centrist alliance lost its majority in the lower house of parliament, although it still has more seats than other political parties. He said at the time that his government wanted to “legislate differently,” based on compromises with a variety of political groups.

If a motion is passed, it would have been a serious blow for Macron: The pensions bill would be rejected and his cabinet would have to resign. If so, the president would have to appoint a new cabinet and see his ability to pass legislation weakened.

Macron especially hopes to propose new measures aimed at reducing the French unemployment rate to 5%, from the current 7.2%, by the end of his second and final mandate.