Two days after the government resorted to article 49.3 to approve the pension reform without a vote, Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt defended the use of this constitutional tool in an interview with the Sunday newspaper.
In this interview, the Minister of Labor believes that the government “has done everything, has tried everything, up to the last minute, to build this majority.” However, according to him, “this reform was too important to run the risk of playing Russian roulette” and “we were in a risk zone, with deputies hesitating between abstention and voting against.”
49.3, “a heartbreaker”
For him, the government has “shown responsibility” and the use of 49.3 “is not an admission of failure, but it is heartbreaking.” “Until the last moment, we sought to avoid this 49-3. But we found that the guarantees were not enough for this text to be adopted. Thus, there will be a vote in the Assembly with the ‘examination of motions of no confidence’.
He regrets, however, that “the opposition, and above all La France insoumise, prevented the National Assembly from debating and voting at first reading, with a massive obstruction of 20,000 amendments that, for the most part, had neither head nor tail” .
But if he attacks LFI, Olivier Dussopt refuses to “point the finger at the LR party” despite not allowing the government to get a sufficient majority, believing that “it would be unfair”. “If there is responsibility, it is rather linked to a few individual leaks,” he judges.
“There will be a before and after”
Regarding the dialogue with the unions, the Minister of Labor willingly acknowledges that “there will be a before and after” of the use of 49.3. However, he considers that “trust is not broken. Finally, Olivier Dussopt did not stop deploring the violence that can arise from political debates against him.” When there is violence in words and in Parliament, it is not surprising that there are also some in the streets.
“The role of parliamentarians and political groups is to calm things down, not play blaster, question the institutions and bring street violence to Parliament,” he lamented on the pages of the JDD.
Source: BFM TV
