No confidence vote in French cabinet over pension reform fails

Two votes of no confidence (motion de censure) against the government of France and Prime Minister Elisabeth Born from the opposition forces, put to the vote of the National Assembly (lower house of parliament) due to the approval of the pension reform plan bypassing the procedure, on March 20 failed to get the required 287 votes. The vote from the cross-party group lacked 9 votes, and the vote from the far-right “National Rally” Marine Le Pen – 94 votes. It is reported by BFMTV, which leads voting broadcast.

Now, according to French law, President Emmanuel Macron can call early parliamentary elections. The head of state will receive the leaders of the parliamentary majority on the evening of Tuesday, March 21, and will decide on further actions. Since the beginning of the Fifth Republic, no-confidence votes have been passed to French governments more than 60 times, but only once, in 1962, were they accepted.

Bourne, who was urged by the sponsors of the first vote to “resign and take your reform with you,” urged Macron to “consider a new government.” In her speech to the deputies, she criticized the behavior of the opposition, in particular, the no-confidence vote itself, emphasizing that “no one has a monopoly on the right to speak on behalf of the people.” The Prime Minister assured that in the final draft of the pension reform “the government has never gone so far in concessions.”

In response, left-wing deputies left the hall in what the Prime Minister called “unparliamentary” behavior. She emphasized that the application of Art. 49.3 of the constitution, which made it possible to approve the pension reform bill without a vote in the National Assembly, “is not an invention of the dictatorship.”

During the vote on a vote of no confidence in France, another mass protest took place. Traffic was disrupted on the passenger rail network of the Île-de-France metropolitan region and on high-speed interregional trains. In Paris, garbage collectors stopped collecting waste (the city hall of the capital estimated the volume of uncollected garbage at 9600 tons), similar strikes by employees of waste management operators took place in Rennes, Nantes, Tours and other cities.

According to a poll by research firm Elabe, two-thirds of French people (68%) would support either a vote of no confidence in the government or Bourne.

On Friday, March 17, opposition parties submitted two votes of no confidence to the government in the French National Assembly after it adopted pension reform on March 16 without a vote in parliament.

The votes of no confidence came after Prime Minister Bourne on March 16 announced the adoption of a law raising the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64. This happened after the passage of the law in the Senate, but bypassing the vote in the National Assembly.

Since the current French Cabinet was not sure that it would get the majority of votes for the adoption of the pension reform, it applied article 49.3 of the constitution to the bill. In this case, the question was no longer about approving a specific document, but about passing a vote of confidence or no confidence in the government of the country and its policy (motion de censure). In the event that an opposition vote of no confidence passes a vote, the current parliament is dissolved and re-elections are called.

Since the no-confidence vote was not passed by the required number of votes, the bill is considered adopted and the president has the right to dissolve the parliament and call early elections, says Pavel Timofeev, head of the department of regional problems and conflicts at IMEMO RAS.

But this does not automatically mean such a turn of affairs – it is unlikely that Macron is now profitable to dissolve parliament, since the pro-government coalition’s chances for at least some kind of majority may disappear. His personal rating is now no more than a third of voters, Timofeev notes. And in 1997, under Jacques Chirac, after the failure of the vote of no confidence and the re-elections launched by the president, Chirac’s opponents, the socialists, came to power, and Macron must remember this, the expert emphasizes.

According to the government’s plan, the retirement age in France will increase from September 1, 2023 by three months a year to reach 64 by 2030. This increase will affect French people born in September 1961 and later.

Also, from 2027, a rule is introduced, according to which, in order to receive a full pension, it is necessary to make insurance contributions (that is, to be officially employed) for 43 years. If a person does not have such an experience, then it will be possible to apply for a full payment upon retirement at 67 years old. The reform also provides for an increase in the minimum pension to 1,200 euros, as well as the abolition of a number of special pension regimes. The need for changes is justified by the reduction in the number of actively working taxpayers and the growth of the budget deficit. It is also important that life expectancy in France has increased and reached the bar of 85 years for women and 79 years for men.