Eight texts appear in the program of the parliamentary initiative day of La Francia Insumisa (LFI) in the National Assembly, scheduled for Thursday, November 28. But deputies have very few possibilities to go beyond the first text of this “niche.” And rightly so: it is the long-awaited bill to repeal the pension reform. It is the first time that a bill of this type reaches session without having been emptied of substance in committee, despite several attempts since the approval of the reform in April 2023. In theory, deputies could manage to repeal it at first reading from the left. and the National Group have announced that they will vote in favor of the text. In theory, because almost a thousand amendments have already been presented.
The “niches”, these days where a parliamentary group has control of the agenda, function like “Cinderella days”: they start at 9 in the morning and, no matter what happens, at midnight, everything stops. It doesn’t matter that we are examining a text and five minutes before the vote the spell is broken. Can a vote be held before midnight on Thursday? This is the whole question because the promoters of the 2023 reform, the presidential coalition and Los Republicanos (LR), do not plan to sit idly by. “We are going to present a certain number of amendments… They want to keep the debate alive, we are going to keep the debate alive”, assures LR deputy for La Mancha Philippe Gosselin. In short: dilute debates and obstruct to prevent a vote before midnight.
Ironically, at the time of the pension reform review in February 2023, it was the left, and ultimately only the LFI, that practiced obstruction. Already at that time, to avoid at all costs a vote and the legitimization by the National Assembly of a very unpopular reform. This is how LFI then justified its obstruction: “There is a difference between hindering respect for popular sovereignty and, on the contrary, preventing the expression of popular sovereignty.” explained, on Tuesday morning, the president of the LFI group to the Assembly, Mathilde Panot. However, the strategy generated controversy, since the former majority did not have harsh enough words to denounce this attitude. Even if parliamentary obstruction is nothing new and has been practiced, over time, by almost all opposition camps.
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