France: the pension reform goes to the Constitutional Council which will decide whether to repeal or legalize it

The pension reform crisis France could obtain a “high exit” and unlock it, given the concern generated by the violence and the incomprehension among French scholars.

The Constitutional Council, the French supreme court of scholars, will be released on its legality next Friday, April 14, “at the end of the day”.

The institution has the possibility to declare the reform completely illegal or in part or ask for its revocation and rule on the shared initiative referendum, deposited by the left, so that it is consulted the citizenry.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the trade unions, sixty deputies and sixty leftist senators appealed to the Council of Wise Men. On 4 April, a delegation of left-wing MPs and environmentalists will join for presentations before the Council, which officially You have until April 21st to send

The wise will be the arbiters of one of the most serious political crises in the country since the appearance of the Yellow Vests, in a flammable scenario.

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Fabious, with a lot of experience

The president of the Constitutional Council is a man of experience. Laurent Fabius was Francois Mitterrand’s prime minister and then French chancellor. It will be article 7, which has become article 10, which set the retirement age at age 64, which is to be decided by the Council.

Almonst never The Constitutional Council declares absolute censorship, but in the debate on the reform there are elements that it will surely address: the lack of clarity and sincerity of parliamentary debates. Not only the application of article 49.3 of the Constitution, the mechanism that the government used to not approve it in Parliament, but also the limitation of the time of the interlocutors in the Senate debate.

The Council can validate the referendum project.

Meeting between government and trade unions

After the tenth march, which ended amid violence and fires by the Black Bloc in the Plaza de la Nación, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invited trade unionists of the Intersindicale will meet next week at Palazzo Matignon. It could be Monday or Tuesday because trade unionists have called another march on April 6th.

On Wednesday morning, government spokesman Olivier Veran rejected “mediation” offered by Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT, France’s first workers’ union. He said mediators weren’t necessary but there were other ways. Shortly after, Borne’s call came to Berger, a Social Democrat who has surpassed the CGT in terms of membership.

A gesture by Macron

The appeal responds to a clamor from ministers to President Emmanuel Macron to do “a gesture” to bring the country out of the crisis. They were joined by their allies, the MODEM deputies.

They appealed to Israel and the incredible images of the marches against the reform of the Supreme Court that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was calling for, with the streets filled with protesters defending democracy and denouncing the coming dictatorship.

Netanyahu decided Monday night to announce a “pause” after the resignation of the defense minister and the Israeli president’s request to halt the reform.

Netanyahu said he accepted it “to avoid civil war”. Exactly what opponents of pension reform in France are asking for, who on Tuesday mobilized more than 740,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry – more than 2 million according to the CGT – for their 10th day of action.

don’t give in

Also, Emmanuel Macron is not Netanyahu. In the Salon des Ambassadeurs, at the Elysee Palace, the President of the Republic warned his ministers and camp leaders on Monday that he a “pause” in your project would be equivalent to a “retirement”. The slogan was applied the next day at the top of the state.

“We mustn’t go back” former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe insisted on TMC on Monday, echoing those advising Emmanuel Macron hold”.

Rather, the executive intends to use topics other than pensions in its confrontation with trade unionists: the distribution of corporate wealth, the exceptional contribution of companies that obtain “super earnings”, end of career and “low wages”.

Called with experience

Given the tense social climate, marked by violence in recent days, some have urged the president to consent to a “gesture”. His predecessor, François Hollande, on Sunday invited BFMTV to “invite the inter-union”, “without preconditions”when former socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve calls for his reform to be “suspended”.

In his field, his allies in the Democratic Movement (MoDem) push him to do so consider “mediation” proposed by the CFDT.

“It’s nice to have one or two people to try to find a dialogue and keep a certain distance,” the head of the centrist deputies, Jean-Paul Mattei, insisted to the press on Tuesday. A leadership position for the Renaissance MPs Stella Dupont and Patrick Vignal, exponents of the majority left. .

What then to do with the bill, approved without a vote by the National Assembly, through article 49, paragraph 3, of the Constitution?

The answer It will be announced on April 14th.. The text is in the hands of the president of the Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius, and of the other eight “Elders” of the high jurisdiction. Three scenarios are possible: full compliance with the bill, censorship of many provisions or total censorship.

France cannot continue in this political and social crisis and in a blockade which it is in the hands of a capricious president.

The trade unionists will go to the meeting in Matignon to discuss retirements and nothing else. If Macron does not ease his tone, set the country on fire and it will be worse than the yellow vests crisis, which wrecked his first term.

Paris, correspondent

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