Has the suspension of the pension reform announced this Tuesday by Sébastien Lecornu and demanded for months by the Socialists allowed Emmanuel Macron to re-elect the Prime Minister, certain that this would be enough to convince Olivier Faure’s party not to censure the Government? In any case, this is the thesis of the head of Ecologists Marine Tondelier.
“They were so willing” to discuss with the executive “and everyone knew it so well that they prevented our appointment” of Matignon, the national secretary of the movement in the Public Senate lamented this Thursday.
“We can reach agreements” with the PS
The head of state, who emerged victorious in the last legislative elections in the summer of 2024, never wanted to appoint a representative of the New Popular Front to the position of Prime Minister. After having tried almost all the member parties of the common base, with Michel Barnier (LR), then François Bayrou (Modem) and finally Sébastien Lecornu (Renaissance), the president decided to keep the latter in Matignon.
For weeks, and even before his real or false resignation, the prime minister has been trying to find an agreement of non-censorship or at least relative benevolence on the part of the socialists. And rightly so: if the socialist deputies enter into the dance of motions of censure, they will surely fall. For the moment, they refuse to do so and will not add their votes this Thursday morning to the motion of censure presented by the rebels and supported by environmentalists and communists.
“The Macronists said to themselves: ‘I think that with the socialists we can reach an agreement,'” observes Marine Tondelier. “It weighed on the balance of powers to demand the appointment of Matignon.”
“The people in front of us do not want to name us”
In the socialist camp we assume the exchange strategy with Sébastien Lecornu. “The debate” on the budget “must take place,” Olivier Faure, first secretary of the PS, defended this Wednesday on BFMTV. “When we do politics, we do it to change people’s lives” and “cause a dissolution, that does not change people’s lives,” insisted the leader of the pink party, ensuring “not having been bought.”
I promise, there has never been any formalized agreement between the PS and the government. “There is no agreement between the socialists and this kind of shadow that is trying to survive from the macro snow,” Lamia El Aaraje, first federal secretary of the PS, insisted on our antenna at the beginning of the week.
“The people in front of us do not want to name us, they do not want to return power, they do not want the directions of public policies to change,” criticizes Marine Tondelier, calling for “a balance of power” between the left and macronism.
The suspension of the pension reform, “a trap” to vote on the social security budget
Enough to push the PS to want to avoid at all costs accrediting the idea that it served as life insurance for Sébastien Lecornu. Before his general policy speech on Tuesday, Olivier Faure constantly reiterated that he was ready with his 68 deputies to censure the new government.
But it is clear that the suspension of the pension reform announced by Sébastien Lecornu in the exact terms demanded by the PS both in terms of age and number of mandates is enough to give up.
If the socialists want to avoid being responsible for the re-election of Sébastien Lecornu, it is because several points of the Social Security budget, which must serve as a legislative vehicle for the suspension of the reform, will severely affect the French. Freezing of retirement pensions, freezing of the amount of social benefits, sharp drop in the hospital budget…
In short, socialists hoping to change these points may end up having to vote for a budget with which they deeply disagree.
This suspension of the pension reform “is also a trap to force the left to vote” on the Social Security financing bill, says Marine Tondelier.
The first committee debates next week in the Assembly will set the tone for the arbitrations that the socialists will or will not be able to obtain.
Source: BFM TV
