The tension rises. After a dinner on Wednesday night at the Élysée, during which the president once again reaffirmed his desire to raise the retirement age, currently set at 62, to 65, the right is making itself heard.
While the presidential majority counted on the votes of the Republicans for this reform to be approved, probably next January during a Social Security amending budget, the door seems closed.
“If there is a desire to go through by force, I think it is a casus belli. There will be several of us in LR who will want to file a motion of no confidence,” MP Raphaël Schellenberger said into the BFMTV microphone.
298 possible voices
In case of examining a budget text, the executive can use 49.3, this constitutional weapon that allows adopting a text without a vote. Although the Agrupación Nacional and the Nupes are fiercely opposed to this reform, it seems very likely that this cartridge will be used. However, in the absence of support from the right, they have no chance of being adopted.
But if the LRs enter the dance, the situation changes. Although 289 votes are needed to pass a motion of no confidence that would overthrow Elisabeth Borne’s government, the presidential majority can pull out the calculator. In the case of a motion of no confidence that would largely bring together the entire opposition, it could obtain 298 votes.
However, the option seems unlikely: until now, the Nupes have always refused to vote on the motions of censure presented by Agrupación Nacional. Marine Le Pen’s movement has already twice supported a text of this type presented by the rebels.
The dissolution spectrum
As for the Republicans, while a hard core of deputies is reputed to be close to the majority, it is difficult to imagine that all of its 60 deputies present a motion of no confidence or vote for that of another group. After a presidential election considered catastrophic, the right also believes that it saved the day during the last legislative elections. Not enough that they really want to get back to the voters.
“If there is a vote of no confidence, I will immediately dissolve” the National Assembly, in fact he had threatened the president in private last September.
In an attempt to smooth things over, Elisabeth Borne will receive the heads of the parliamentary groups in Matignon on Tuesday and next Wednesday before revealing the precise lines of the reform on Thursday.
Source: BFM TV
