At the time of the show’s signing, the result of the vote in the Senate (Upper House of Parliament) became known. A bill aimed at reforming the pension system, in particular by raising the retirement age by two years, was approved by 193 senators, 114 against and 38 abstained. This result was fully expected. Indeed, in the Upper House, supporters of reform, and these are not only pro-government politicians, but also moderate right-wingers from the Republican Party, are traditionally in the majority.
Of course, they had some complaints about the bill, but the government took them into account, which was confirmed at a meeting of the Conciliation Commission on the text of the document. Composed of seven deputies and seven senators, it approved it on Wednesday, adding in particular the possibility of retirement at 63 for those who started working at 20 and have at least 43 years of experience.
However, a much more ambiguous situation developed in the lower house of parliament – the National Assembly, where the vote was scheduled for the second half of Thursday. At the time of the show’s signing, the results of the vote were not yet known. The fact is that the President’s Renaissance Party did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. In principle, Macron’s supporters could count on the “Republicans”, and these are 62 deputies. But here’s the problem. It is not a fact that they were all unanimously ready to support Macron reform at the finish line. According to reports, between 10 and 20 MPs from this faction wanted to not only abstain from voting, but also give their voice to opponents of the reform. And that, it should be noted, is the entire opposition camp – from the left (people of the same opinion of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, socialists, “greens”, communists) to the many supporters of Marine Le Pen. As the metropolitan newspaper Le Figaro wrote these days, “the government will take a serious risk if it makes a mistake in its calculations and fails to obtain even a small but sufficient number of votes in the National Assembly”. As for Prime Minister Elisabeth Born, to whom Macron entrusted the main responsibility for the implementation of the controversial reform, on the eve of the vote, she said she was “confident in the support of the majority of the deputies”.
For the current leader of the Fifth Republic, such an outcome would surely mean that he has won the main bet of his presidency. However, as we learned from sources close to the Elysée, Macron admits other scenarios. Thus, in the event that the deputies rejected the bill in its final version, the president considered the option of dissolving the National Assembly, as well as the advisability of using another last resort available to the government. This was Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the authorities to approve the law without discussion or vote in Parliament. Certainly, in this case, the opposition has the right to adopt a vote of no confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers, and this question will be placed on the parliamentary agenda in the coming days.
All these passions around the Palais Bourbon, where the deputies sit, take place against a backdrop of incessant speeches by opponents of the reform, which is unpopular with the people. On Wednesday, France held its eighth general day of protests. According to their data, the unions brought 450,000 people to the Paris demonstration and, in total, more than 1.7 million French people took part in more than 200 actions. True, the Interior Ministry called the numbers several times smaller. Transport workers, teachers, nurses were on strike. Energy workers in Vendée, in the west of the country, cut the electricity to the home of Republican senator Bruno Retaio, one of the ardent defenders of pension reform.
Soon Macron’s opponents will be building barricades in Paris out of two-meter heaps of rubbish. Photo: EPA
In Paris, for the 11th day in a row, the garbage collectors’ strike continues, due to which the “City of Light”, as the French capital is often called, has turned into a giant dump. Heaps of very varied waste, sometimes two meters high, filled the sidewalks of most districts of Paris, especially in the west and south. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the three waste incinerators on the outskirts of the capital are blocked by the strikers, who have already announced: we will continue the struggle until at least March 20.
While the health authorities warn of an invasion of rats which, according to the regional health agency, would be several million in Paris, a scandal breaks out between the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and the mayor of the city, Anne Hidalgo. The minister demands that the municipality take the most decisive measures to clean up the agglomeration, but the mayor is clearly in no hurry, because she initially supported the protest movement and refuses to oblige the public services to strike to go back down to the street. Under these conditions, Gérald Darmanin threatened to force the cleaning ladies to get to work. Under French law, in emergency situations where “public order” is at stake, authorities can force strikers – including one at a time – to come to work. Otherwise, they face a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of 10,000 euros.
