“This government is not worthy of our Fifth Republic,” the head of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, lashed out on Thursday after the government’s announcement about the use of 49.3. “It’s a shame for democracy,” he lamented during a press conference in the National Assembly, after the government shot 49.3, ahead of the vote on the pension reform.
According to him, Parliament was “ridiculed and humiliated to the end”, with deputies “who cannot even vote” for a reform “as important” as that of pensions.
“Total Failure of Government”
The environmental deputy Julien Bayou said he was “shocked” on the BFMTV microphone, deploring “the stubbornness of President Macron”, ready to “brutalize the country (…) and all ‘fuck it’ for his personal ego”. The leader of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure denounced the “whims” of the president.
This option to resort to 49.3 constitutes “an acknowledgment of the total failure of the government,” added the head of the National Rally Marine Le Pen. “It is Emmanuel Macron’s reform, it is his personal failure,” he told reporters.
According to her, Elisabeth Borne must “go away”. “Remaining would be considered an additional slap” to the French, she says.
“Brutality”
“The brutality with which this reform was forcibly imposed on parliamentarians is hard for everyone” and in particular for the protesters, insisted Fabien Roussel, before announcing the continuation of the mobilizations “in all their forms”. “I understand the anger of the French,” added Marine Le Pen. The Government “does not want to respect the will of the people,” nor that of its representatives, she laments.
And the social protest “runs the risk of escalating” in the street, anticipates the president of the Agrupación Nacional group in the Assembly.
The deputies opposed to the reform still have “hope in the coming weeks and months of being able to win this reform, whatever the vote, whatever the humiliations that the President of the Republic will have inflicted on Parliament”, says Fabien Roussel.
Pointing out a desire to “trampling on the institutions”, the deputy Julien Bayou complained of not being able, for months, “to work properly”, prevented by the opposition deputies by the government.
Cross-partisan motion of no confidence
“We will present a motion and we will vote on all” of those that can be presented, indicated the president of the Agrupación Nacional group, in the face of this “de facto political crisis situation.”
For Julien Bayou, who says a “cross-partisan” motion of no confidence has been prepared and should be presented this Friday, “this is perhaps the first time that a motion of no confidence can bring down the government.”
“They are willing to put the country to blood and fire, why? Because of the president’s ego,” Julien Bayou lamented.
Faced with this motion of no confidence, he calls on the Republican deputies, divided in the vote on the pension reform, to adopt it as well. What “most likely” several of them could do, according to parliamentarian LR Pierre-Henri Dumont.
For the moment, therefore, the pension reform is approved, except in the case that the motion of censure is approved on Monday.
Source: BFM TV
