Deputies and senators return. And she should be restless. The Parliament resumes from today its work in the hemicycles: a start on the hats of wheels between the reform of the unemployment insurance, the powder keg of the budget or the question of the registration of the access to the abortion in the Constitution. Unlike this summer, the government is planning a real showdown in the hemicycle. The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, warned in the columns of Le Parisien on Sunday September 25: “It must not be a mess.”
From Monday, after a debate on Ukraine, MEPs will start with a highly corrosive unemployment insurance bill. Initially, it is a question of extending the rules resulting from a controversial reform of the previous five-year term, which expire on October 31. But that’s not all: the text also contains the prelude to a reform to change the number of months required to access compensation, or the duration of it, depending on indicators such as the unemployment rate. for example.
On this subject, the Macronists hope to rally the right against a left determined to do battle. According to MP Hadrien Clouet (LFI-Nupes), the text amounts to “seeing how to force people who live on less than 1000 euros per month to take up often unworthy jobs”. On the Republican side, the desire displayed is the establishment of a presumption of resignation in the event of unjustified job abandonment, to block access to unemployment benefits.
The Senate, dominated by the right, starts him with a week of debates, including a topical Wednesday on Iran. The first bill – orientation and programming of the Ministry of the Interior – will be examined from 11 October. It provides for an additional 15 billion euros in the budget over five years, and an increase of 8,500 police and gendarme posts.
The unemployment insurance bill will arrive in the upper house the last week of October. The senators will also have their own debate on Ukraine on the 26th, but will scrap first on France’s energy policy on October 12.
In the Assembly, the deputies will continue on October 10 with a public finance programming bill, but above all with the State budget. The balance that the government must find is delicate, between protecting households against inflation and reducing the public deficit. This budget “to the nearest euro”, according to Bercy, intends to contain the public deficit to 5% of GDP, despite growth prospects of 1% in 2023, the OECD rather counting on 0.6%. “The structural deficit has also widened”, noted in L’Express Patrick Artus, on September 21.
As it stands, the text succeeds in achieving unanimity – opposition – against it. It is considered too spendthrift by the right and not protective enough by the left, which demands taxation of the superprofits of big business. The government is preparing to have to light the fuse of 49.3 to pass the text, which will earn it motions of censure promised by the left and the RN. The same scenario could be repeated on the draft budget of the “Secu”, from October 20. According to five hospital federations in the public sectors, the extension of 800 million to compensate for inflation remains insufficient. They claim a billion euros.
The highly flammable track of an amendment to reform pensions this fall has cooled a little, the government heading towards a “consultation” with a view to a text before “the end of winter”. But the Head of State does not rule out a possible dissolution of the National Assembly in the event of a dam. The president wants to avoid the blockage caused by the previous attempt at reform in 2019, and for it to come into force in the summer of 2023.
But the postponement of the starting age to 65, dear to Emmanuel Macron, remains a casus belli. “65 years is niet,” said Laurent Berger, secretary general of the CFDT, in the Sunday newspaper, specifying that he will not boycott the consultations. The social partners and the executive will also discuss employment of seniors, minimum retirement, hardship and special schemes. For their part, the LFI deputies already refuse to participate “in (the) masquerade” of the new round of consultations.
The Senate will debate him from November 17 of the finance bill, after the examination of the Social Security budget from November 7, on the occasion of which the right-wing majority intends to put the pension file on the table.
To observe a little harmony in the Assembly, it will be necessary to look at the day dedicated to the MoDem group on October 6th. Member of the majority, he will notably propose to prohibit the canvassing of training organizations. While the personal training account is enjoying significant success, it is the victim of an upsurge in fraud attempts: the loss amounted to 43.2 million euros in 2021, according to Tracfin, against 7.8 million in 2020. Also, the MoDem group will propose to limit “the fencing of natural spaces”. These two texts will be widely adopted in committee.
The Senate, at the origin of an explosive report during the presidential election on government spending on consulting firms, will examine a cross-partisan bill to regulate these services on October 18. He will work the same day on an LR text against medical deserts, which anticipated the measure proposed by the government in the Social Security budget.
Finally, on the subject of the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution, the Senate will open the ball on October 19 during the “niche” reserved for environmentalists. The constitutional bill was tabled in early September by ecologist Mélanie Vogel, and co-signed by 114 senators from five different groups. The subject could also be brought to the Assembly by the LFI group on November 24, and/or by the Renaissance group a few days later.
This protection by the Constitution is supported by left-wing groups and representatives of the presidential majority, in particular in reaction to the decline in the right to abortion in several European countries, such as Poland or Hungary. Despite the reservations of the MoDem or the National Rally, finding a majority in the Assembly should be possible, since the deputies En Marche and Nupes are in favor of the measure. But the Senate, dominated by the right, should give more trouble.
