Pension reform: Nicolas Sarkozy believes that “49.3 is proof of weakness”

“I have never used the 49.3.” The former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out this Wednesday against the use of article 49.3, during a symposium at the Institut de France, while the current government raised the possibility of using it to carry out its pension reform.

“I was President of the Republic for five years, I never used 49.3”, declared Nicolas Sarkozy, “for me, 49.3 is proof of weakness”.

Article 49, paragraph 3, of the French Constitution provides for the possibility for the government to adopt a bill, without the vote of the National Assembly. This decision can be reversed if “a motion of censure is filed within 24 hours and signed by at least a tenth of the members of the National Assembly,” explains the government website.

“They really wanted me to wear 49.3”

Nicolas Sarkozy claims to have had “a lot of pressure” during his mandate to resort to this article, “especially when we had this idea of ​​retiring from 60 to 62 years of age.” It was “difficult because everyone around me really wanted me to wear 49.3, but I didn’t,” he says.

For him, having voted for the text in the National Assembly has protected him against possible violence during the demonstrations against his reform. He thus evokes a meeting that brought together 3 million people during this period. Demonstration in which “there was no violence”, he assures him.

“If I had put 49.3, and if I had forced the Assembly to vote, I can’t say what would have happened, but I think I was risking violence,” he explains, “because despite everything, the debate in the National Assembly, in the Parliament, in the Senate, it is a bit like the steam from a pressure cooker: if you release a little steam, it is better not to run the risk of it exploding”.

“I’m not saying it’s linked, it would be too simplistic, but I can’t help but, in hindsight, make the link between this debate that I didn’t want to restrict in Parliament, which is a place of debate anyway, and the outcome. And if If it had to be done, I would do it again,” he said.