Pensions: 7,000 amendments tabled in committee at the Assembly – France

About 7,000 amendments to the pension reform project have been tabled for consideration in committee in the National Assembly, we learned from a parliamentary source on Thursday, with the risk that the deputies will not be able to go at the end of the text within the allotted time. The Social Affairs Committee is looking into this highly inflammable reform from Monday. Even if certain amendments could be considered inadmissible, their overall number makes it very difficult to examine the text in its entirety, before it arrives in the hemicycle on February 6.

More than 3,000 amendments for LFI, 75 for the RN

LFI has not reproduced its massive obstruction strategy of 2020, when the Insoumis alone tabled 19,000 amendments in committee and 23,000 in session, against the previous attempt at pension reform. But the deputies of the left-wing Nupes coalition still tabled a very large number: 3,345 amendments for LFI, 1,282 for the ecologists, 1,053 for the socialists, with the exception of the communists (272). The flurry of amendments focus on Article 7 of the bill, to oppose en bloc the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years. And the lawsuits for obstruction will not fail to fuse.

“We could have tabled as many amendments as the number of lives that this reform will destroy, but we want the heart of this counter-reform, the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 provided for in the article 7 of the bill, be addressed in our debates”, justifies the Nupes in a press release. “Everyone knows it’s a useless reform.” “I think the general strike will be well attended on January 31,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon said during a demonstration by La France insoumise this Thursday evening in Paris.

LR carries a total of 617 amendments and the RN 75. In the majority, Renaissance has around a hundred, the MoDem and Horizons around forty each. The timetable for examining the reform is constrained, 20 days being allocated to deputies for the first reading of the text, between passage in committee and in the hemicycle. This is the deadline for an amending budget for Social Security (PLFSSR), the vector chosen by the government.

Twelve days of debates in the Assembly

The exchanges in the hemicycle must start on Monday February 6 and end on the 17th at midnight, so that the text then passes to the Senate. After the parliamentary break from February 20 to 26, the upper house dominated by the right will examine the text adopted by the Assembly, or failing that, the initial text of the government, modified by the amendments that the Assembly will have had time to vote and which the executive supports. Senators will have 15 days.

Then deputies and senators will try to agree in a joint committee. If there is agreement, it must be validated by both chambers. Otherwise the text will make a last shuttle and the Assembly will have the last word. The Parliament must decide in total in 50 days, that is to say by March 26 at midnight, otherwise the provisions of the reform can be implemented by ordinance, provides for the Constitution. It never happened.