Will the pension reform have time to be approved in the Senate? This is one of the major issues in the upper house review of the text, which began on Thursday and will end on Sunday, March 12. The right, mostly in the Luxembourg Palace, is pushing in that direction, refusing to reproduce the scenario of the National Assembly, where only the first two articles of the bill could be voted on.
Avant meme le coup d’envoi des échanges en séance publice, la majorityité senatoriale adressé des messages à ses opposants, au cas où ils seráiente tempté de reprodre la stratégie des soumis qui ont fait patiner l’adoption du projet de loi à l’ National Assembly. “If there is an obstruction, we will simply use all constitutional means and those of our regulations,” warned Gérard Larcher, president of the Senate and the Les Républicains (LR) party, in the columns of the figaro.
Article 38 makes it possible to speed up discussions
The same story for Bruno Retailleau. Inside the parisianthe head of the senators (LR), considered that the blockade would have to be “blocked” if the “oppositions were tempted by the obstruction”.
For now, despite rejection motions and a referendum motion from the left, we are far from it. In total, some 4,700 amendments – the majority from the left – to this text were presented in the Senate. For comparison, there were around 20,000 in the National Assembly before the opening of the debates.
However, if these were extended, the right could invoke article 38 of the Senate regulations, introduced in 2015 and never used since. If it is not part of the Constitution like articles 49.3 and 47.1, this provision also allows for expediting debates.
It establishes that “when at least two speakers of contrary opinion” have intervened in the general discussion of a text, a reform, an article or even the entire bill, the president of the Senate, a group president or even the president of the commission interested in the text, can propose the closure, thus giving rise to a vote by show of hands of the senators.
“Constitutional problem”
Its use would be “really a terrible blade”, denounced Patrick Kanner in the Public Senate this Friday. For the president of the group of socialist senators, the use of this article would suppose “a constitutional problem”.
“We consider a pro and a con,” he explained, before emphasizing that this applies “regardless of the potential diversity of pros and cons.” And to the question:
“Who speaks for the contras? Is he a socialist? Is he green? Is he radical?”
For his part, Bruno Retailleau reminded France Info that “the rules” of the Senate “have been approved by the Constitutional Council. Although he considers that “obstruction is a distraction.”
Source: BFM TV
