Two rooms, two rooms. If in the Senate the right-wing senators voted overwhelmingly in favor of the pension reform, the Republican deputies were divided. Enough to blow up an already shabby in-laws a bit more.
“We are in the same party but it is less and less noticeable,” sums up Senator Roger Karoutchi, former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy and respected figure of the LR.
unison and dissonance
In the upper house, the government was able to trust the right to get its reform approved. Some votes were missing (6 senators voted against and 18 abstained out of 145 MPs) on Saturday night when the final vote was taken, but the LRs showed a relatively united face.
It must be said that the Luxembourg Palace has been delaying the retirement age in the social security budget for several years. Nothing like the Palais-Bourbon.
If Éric Ciotti, the new head of the LR, and Olivier Marleix, the number 1 of the group, both support the reform, a dozen deputies oppose it and a handful of them plan to abstain during the probable vote on the text on Thursday, or at least a third of the troops.
“Everyone has their own shop”
To explain these strong differences, the most advanced argument is that of the very particular context of the legislative elections. After catastrophic presidential elections and Valérie Pécresse’s hungry 4.7%, 61 deputies were elected or re-elected in the absence of a real right-wing legislative campaign. In other words, an almost unexpected result. Result: deputies who consider themselves little linked to their political group.
“We have 60 auto-entrepreneurs, each one at the service of his workshop and his own interests. It is not new, but before it only concerned a few deputies. There, now it is very divided,” laments an LR deputy, close to ‘Olivier Marleix .
“Don’t run the slightest electoral risk”
Added to this is the social context, between a strong rejection of the pension reform by the French from poll to poll and some union pressure while several LR offices suffered power outages.
“The deputies of our camp tell themselves that there may be a dissolution soon and refuse to take the slightest electoral risk, which inevitably leads to not wanting to be associated with retirement at 64”, admits Senator LR Étienne White.
The elected members of the upper house are not devoid of political calculation either. As the senatorial elections next September approach, Bruno Retailleau, the head of the LR senators, has already warned that those who did not support the reform would not be sworn in.
“I don’t want to calculate” Larcher
The threat has obviously paid off: among those who voted against, few are those who have to face the polls at the start of the school year (the Senate is renewable by half every 3 years, editor’s note). The tutelary figure of Gérard Larcher, highly respected in the Senate and who supports the reform, unlike the National Assembly, also weighed in the balance.
“Gérard Larcher, I don’t know him, I just met him. As for Bruno Retailleau, he’s in the Senate, that’s very good, but I don’t owe him anything. We have to stop believing that everyone will settle between. We don’t necessarily want to calculate them”, ponders a deputy for LR, elected for the first time last June.
In the ranks on the right, some also point to the desire to distance themselves from the Lot deputy Aurélien Pradié. Defeated candidate during the race for the LR presidency last fall, it was he and his lieutenants who crossed swords with the Executive in the device of long careers.
“A little game for those preparing for 2027”
To the chagrin of Éric Ciotti who ended up firing him from his position as number 2 after the young man was applauded by the Nupes for having asked Olivier Dussopt for details about the retirement of employees who started work before 9:00 p.m.
“There is a little game played by some who are preparing for 2027 and who have killed two birds with one stone: opposing Emmanuel Macron and weakening Éric Ciotti and therefore rebounding Laurent Wauquiez”, deciphers deputy Alexandre Vincendet, a close friend of the president . from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
Towards an implosion of the group in the event of a motion of censure?
An elected official who appreciates Aurélien Pradié, however, judges that the Lotois “bred a hare” with long careers, forcing the government to improve its text in this area.
“We are here to play politics, we do. Neither more nor less and we don’t have to give a gift to the Elysium”, adds this elect.
Meanwhile, some on the right fear the group’s implosion in the coming days. LR deputies are even considering presenting a motion of censure that could be signed by elected officials from other political parties in case of 49.3, to the chagrin of those who support the reform.
To try to calm things down, two group meetings are scheduled: one this Tuesday, like every week, but also another this Wednesday, according to information from BFMTV.com. With one objective: to adopt a common position for the return of the reform to the National Assembly. And avoid a division in the group.
Source: BFM TV
