Macron will speak on “after” pension reform, still disputed

by Elizabeth Pineau

PARIS (Reuters) – It is an Emmanuel Macron jostled by the political crisis caused by the pension reform who will speak on Wednesday at midday on television, two days after the adoption of the text via the narrow rejection of a motion of censure which weakens the government of Elisabeth Borne.

While the protest continues in the streets of many cities and certain sectors such as refineries, the Head of State consults his troops all day Tuesday on the eve of his planned intervention on TF1 and France 2 at 1:00 p.m. (12:00 GMT ).

“The President of the Republic respected the institutions, there was time for parliamentary debate (…) which meant that the President was waiting for the debates to end before he could intervene”, explained Tuesday on RTL the spokesperson for the government, Olivier Véran.

Unable to be sure of obtaining a majority in the National Assembly to have its text adopted, the government resorted to Article 49.3 of the Constitution and engaged its responsibility, provoking strong protests in Parliament and in the streets where Spontaneous demonstrations were sometimes punctuated by violence.

Two motions of censure filed as part of the appeal to 49.3 were rejected on Monday, including a cross-partisan one from the centrist group Liot, in particular voted by a third of the group Les Républicains, which failed by only nine votes.

The rejection of these two motions leads to the de facto adoption of the bill by Parliament, but the government of Elisabeth Borne nevertheless appears to be weakened.

Pending his televised intervention, the Head of State consults, starting with his Prime Minister, received Tuesday morning at the Elysee Palace before meeting the three parliamentary groups of the majority.

“Count on me and the government to listen and move forward together,” she said, according to those around her.

According to a participant in a meeting bringing together the tenors of the majority and Emmanuel Macron, the head of state does not envisage any reshuffle or dissolution of the National Assembly in the immediate future.

“The message is rather a request from the president to find a new method and a new reform agenda with a capital ‘R’ for the next few years,” he said.

The intervention of Stéphane Séjourné, general delegate of Renaissance, to the deputies of his camp went in this direction.

“We must pacify before learning lessons. We will learn lessons in two, three weeks on the course and on the method,” he said, according to his entourage.

In addition to a return to the pension reform which ignited the country, Emmanuel Macron will begin Wednesday “to outline what will happen now”, said Olivier Véran.

The Head of State is having lunch on Tuesday with the Presidents of the National Assembly and the Senate and will receive parliamentarians from the presidential majority in the evening.

“What we expect from the President of the Republic is that he draw up prospects, we talked about a three-, six-month calendar,” Sacha Houlié, Renaissance deputy for Vienne, told Reuters on Monday evening. . “We have expectations on issues such as old age, the distribution of wealth. How we address workers who are directly affected by the pension reform”.

PROTESTS AND INCIDENTS

The violence and the consequences of the reform in public opinion are inflaming the opposition and worrying right to the heart of the presidential camp, where the Renaissance deputy Patrick Vignal asked Emmanuel Macron to “suspend” the pension bill and not not promulgate the text.

In an interview with Liberation, the deputy for Paris and former “boss” of the group in the Assembly, Gilles Le Gendre, insists on the “seriousness of the moment” and invites the Head of State to propose a “roadmap” which should, according to him, be validated by referendum.

Now adopted in Parliament, the pension reform must be validated by the Constitutional Council, called to be seized by the left and the National Rally.

Elisabeth Borne will also seize the Council “directly”, indicated Monday evening Matignon, so that “all the points raised during the debates can be examined as soon as possible”.

The protest against the pension reform also continues in the street where incidents have broken out in Paris but also in Lille, Strasbourg, Nantes and in smaller towns.

The inter-union called for a new day of strike and national mobilization scheduled for Thursday – the ninth since the movement launched in January by the unions in a rare united front.

Faced with the renewable strike in the refineries, which is blocking fuel deliveries for the fourteenth consecutive day, the government announced on Tuesday that it was going to requisition personnel to operate the fuel depot in Fos-sur-Mer, in the Bouches. -du-Rhone.

According to images from BFMTV, scuffles broke out on the site between protesters gathered on site and the police.

The Ministry of Energy also announced on Tuesday that it had released strategic stocks since the beginning of March in a targeted manner to avoid shortages at gas stations.

(Written by Blandine Hénault and Elizabeth Pineau, with contributions from Bertrand Boucey, edited by Kate Entringer)