Pensions: the government faced with motions of censure and social anger

In this climate of crisis, the group of independent deputies Liot tabled a "transpartisan" censure motion on Friday co-signed by elected officials from Nupes. The latter is more likely to be voted on by right-wing MPs unfavorable to pension reform. But the absolute majority bar to bring down the government seems difficult to achieve.

The small group Libertés, Indépendants Outre-mer et Territoires (Liot), which has 20 deputies from various political tendencies, thus finds itself in a pivotal position. "The vote on this motion will make it possible to emerge from the top of a deep political crisis", declared in front of the press the leader of the group, Bertand Pancher, regretting that "the colleagues of LR are not signatories".

The National Rally (RN) was also to table a motion of censure.

Motions of censure must be filed less than twenty-four hours after the triggering of article 49.3, ie before Friday in the middle of the afternoon. Then it will be necessary to wait at least forty-eight hours for them to be debated.

"Anger Rises"

Blocking of the Paris ring road, the Toulon or Bordeaux station, demonstrations ... After rallies of several thousand "rebellious" demonstrators on Thursday, opponents of the increase in the retirement age to 64 instead of 62 resumed the fight sporadically on Friday, most often at the initiative of the CGT.

On Thursday, the executive opted for article 49.3 of the Constitution. This procedure, triggered for the 11th time by Elisabeth Borne, allows the adoption of a text without a vote in the National Assembly, except for a motion of censure.

"We felt this announcement as an insult. We haven't been listened to for weeks, it generated a lot of anger," Philippe Melaine, SVT teacher at a public high school in Rennes, told AFP. more than 2.000 people marched on Friday, including several hundred high school students.

The government "does not listen to what we feel on a daily basis in our professions: we do not see ourselves going to work until 64, it is already hard to go until 60," added Gulven, nurse at the Rennes psychiatric hospital.

In Bordeaux, standing on the tracks or sitting on the station platforms, waving their flags in the colors of the main unions, some 200 people shouted: "anger is rising".

“The 49.3 has tensed everyone,” Rémi Vinet, secretary general of the CGT Cheminots in Bordeaux, told AFP, predicting that this anger would “spread to other sectors because of this 49.3”.

Early Friday morning, around 200 protesters blocked traffic for half an hour on the Paris ring road. “We came back up,” said Soumaya Gentet of CGT Monoprix, among them, promising that she “will hold out until the withdrawal”.

The CGT also announced the shutdown of the TotalEnergie refinery in Normandy this weekend.

Dispatched to the morning TV and radio mornings on Friday morning, government heavyweights tried to put out the fire.

"We are destined to continue to govern," said government spokesman Olivier Véran.

For his part, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt refused to present the use of 49.3 as "a failure". "There is a text and this text will be, if the motion of censure is rejected, implemented," he said.

Bitterness

On Thursday, thousands of people gathered at Place de la Concorde when Elisabeth Borne took on the responsibility of her government.

Announcing 310 arrests in France, including 258 in Paris, Thursday evening, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin denounced Friday in particular "burnt effigies" in Dijon and "targeted prefectures". Incidents also broke out in Rennes, Nantes, Amiens, Lille, Marseille and Grenoble.

The patron saint of Renaissance deputies Aurore Bergé asked Mr. Darmanin to "mobilize state services" for the "protection of parliamentarians" of the majority.

At the same time, the intersyndicale called for "local local rallies" this weekend, as well as a ninth day of strikes and demonstrations on Thursday March 23.

Several union officials in the transport and energy sectors have warned of possible "excesses" or "individual actions" by rank-and-file workers.

At the Assembly, the time is settling accounts.

First within the Republicans, whose divisions on this text, however shaped by their LR colleagues in the Senate, weighed heavily on the decision of the executive. But also within the majority, where the 49.3 risks leaving traces.

On the right, the rebellious posture of the Lot deputy Aurélien Pradié, opposed to the reform and ready to censure the government, completes the mess among the Republicans.

In the majority, the bitterness was palpable.

"We had to go to the vote given the content of this text, given the excitement in the country," said Modem MP Erwann Balanant on Friday.

"We owed this: to our opposition, to those who until then have expressed their disagreement with the reform, always in calm and dignity", tweeted Renaissance MP for Gironde Eric Bothorel.