Paris: French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne used a special procedure to push an unpopular pensions bill through the National Assembly without a vote on Thursday, amid shouts and chants from left-wing lawmakers brandishing placards against the reform.
The move, using the so-called article 49:3 of the constitution, will ensure the bill raising the retirement age by two years to 64 is adopted after weeks of protests and fractious debate.
But it also shows President Emmanuel Macron and his government failed to garner enough of a majority in parliament.
Borne was greeted by boos as she arrived in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, to announce the special procedure on Thursday. The session was suspended for two minutes after left-wing lawmakers singing the national anthem prevented Borne from speaking. Some brandished placards reading “No to 64 years”.
When the session resumed, Borne took the floor but her speech was largely drowned out by boos and chants from opposition members of parliament and shouts of “resignation,” in a rare chaotic scene in the French parliament.
“We cannot gamble on the future of our pensions, this reform is necessary,” Borne told lawmakers, to explain why she was using the 49:3 procedure.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Borne should resign. “This last-minute resort to 49:3 is an extraordinary sign of weakness,” she said, adding, speaking of Borne: “She must go.”
The Senate, upper house, had given its green light to the bill in the morning, as expected, thanks to support from senators from the conservative Les Republicains (LR).
But the afternoon vote in the National Assembly would have been a different matter. There, LR lawmakers were split on the issue and the government, which needed their support, decided at the last minute to skip a vote.
Resorting to the measure is likely to further enrage unions, protesters and left-wing opposition parties that say the pension overhaul is unfair and unnecessary.
“This government is not worthy of our Fifth Republic, of French democracy. Until the very end, parliament has been ridiculed, humiliated,” Fabien Roussel, head of the French Communist Party said.
Socialist Party head Olivier Faure told Reuters earlier on Thursday that such a move could unleash “an uncontrollable anger” after weeks of rolling strikes and protests.
Le Pen’s National Rally and the left-wing France Insoumise (France Unbowed) said they would request a vote of no confidence in the government. However, that is unlikely to pass as most conservative lawmakers would likely not back it.
Macron and his government say raising the retirement age is necessary to get the pension system out of the red by the end of the decade.
But his failure to get the pension overhaul passed by a majority in parliament is a blow to Macron’s abilities to win support from other parties and carry out further reforms.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Leigh Thomas, Dominique Vidalon, John Irish, Marine Strauss, Geert de Clercq; Writing by Leigh Thomas and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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