Pension reform: LR puts pressure on government about long careers

Party leaders Les Républicains met Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday. At the heart of the discussions: the fate of employees who started working early.

by Alexandre Pedro

This time, there was no photo at the end of the appointment on the Perron of Matignon. Wednesday 1 February, the president of the Les Républicains (LR) party, Eric Ciotti, and that of the LR group in the National Assembly, Olivier Marleix, were discreetly received in the middle of the morning by Elisabeth Borne. On January 12, the two right -wing leaders (then accompanied by the leader of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau) had left the Prime Minister with “the bases of an agreement” on pension reform.

Since then, water has flowed under the bridges and demonstrators used their sneakers during two days of mobilization, on January 19 and 31. And, between the majority and the right, the bases have lifted. In the aftermath of the success of the second day of action, Matignon wanted to take the pulse of his unique ally to measure the room for maneuver he had for the vote of the text in Parliament.

The main crack remains the question of long careers. Pushed in this sense by the Lot deputy, Aurélien Pradié, the LRs today ask for an exemption from the postponement of the legal retirement age at 64 for employees who started to work early. On the grounds that it is unfair, in the government’s project, that those who have started working between 16 and 20 years old are forced to contribute forty-four years (instead of forty-three) to leave at 64.

“Aurélien Pradié expressed himself very clearly [Tuesday] in a group meeting to say that, if [they] obtained [ent] this measure that [they] defended, (…) he would vote the reform”, assured Olivier Marleix on Wednesday, in front of the Association of Parliamentary Journalists (AJP). On the government side as well as that of the Ciotti-Marleix duo, this demand on long careers is identified as that capable of guaranteeing parliamentary discipline. “It is the justice of the peace in our group,” sums up Stéphane Viry, deputy LR of the Vosges, while fifteen of his colleagues say they are ready not to vote the text of the executive.

Calle the ardors of Pradié and his friends

Aurélien Pradé in the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes of the National Assembly, in Paris, January 10, 2023. Julien Muguet for “Le Monde ”

But if, among the 62 elected officials of the group, some were waiting to see white smoke above Matignon on this issue, they may have to wait a little more. Latest news, M terminal continues to play neither yes ni no and take refuge behind the difficulty of the costing for this “gift” to the lr.

After this meeting also in the presence of the Ministers of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, and relations with the Parliament, Franck Riester, the general feeling on the side of the right was “to have made the foreground”. But, within the party, we still want to believe that the door remains open and that an agreement is not so far away. Elisabeth Borne had however suggested the opposite by asserting Sunday on franceinfo that the postponement of the legal age at 64 “was no longer negotiable”.

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