Pensions: the Constitutional Council definitively buries the RIP

Last salvo for a missed shot. The Constitutional Council rejected this Wednesday the second request for a referendum of shared initiative or RIP filed on April 13 by more than 250 left-wing parliamentarians. By this decision, the 9 members of the Constitutional Council put an end to the last recourse of opponents in constitutional matters.

Deemed non-compliant “within the meaning of Article 11 of the Constitution” by the institution of rue de Montpensier, this second referendum initiative was again intended to repeal raising the legal retirement age to 64 but proposed, this time, an increase in the CSG rate on certain incomes as financial resources.

Constitutionality requirement

The ambition of its editors was to correspond to the requirement of constitutionality which would have been lacking in its first version, invalidated on April 14th. To be declared compliant, a RIP must indeed present, in its content and its wording, a real “reform relating to the economic and social policy of the nation”.

This first version, which contained only one article on age measurement, was finally rejected on the grounds that “on the date of registration of the referral, the bill aimed at affirming that age retirement age cannot be set beyond the age of 62 does not entail a change in the rule of law”. The pension reform having only been promulgated on April 15 in the “Official Journal”, the Constitutional Council had justified its decision by the absence of an effective change in the law at the time of this first request for RIP.

Logically, he again concluded on Wednesday that this second request, even enriched with an article, still did not correspond to the requirement of constitutionality required under article 11. the referral, the prohibition to set the legal retirement age beyond 62 does not therefore entail a change in the rule of law”, thus sums up, in identical terms, the press release .

New remedies

This second failure had been anticipated by the trade unions, still mobilized against the reform. Since the constitutional reform of 2008, only one request for RIP has, to date, been deemed compliant: that concerning the privatization of Aéroports de Paris (ADP) in 2019. But for lack of sufficient signatories (10% of the electorate), this RIP could not come to an end. In the wake of a turbulent May Day, a call from the unions to a new day of mobilization has already been launched for June 6 next.

In the processions, the mobilization does not weaken when on the legislative level, the opponents of the reform have a few more cartridges. A bill of repeal brought by the Liot group to the National ***embly, carrying the main motion of censure against the government, will have to be debated in the National ***embly from June 8th. Once again, it is a question of abolishing the age measure at 64, which would empty the reform of its substance.

Tackling implementing decrees

Nothing indicates, at this time, that it will reach the necessary majority or that the government will not delay its vote in the hemicycle since it is a parliamentary niche whose examination ceases at midnight. For its part, the National Rally announced that it wanted to table a bill aimed at “establishing a retirement age at 60”, a flagship measure of Marine Le Pen’s presidential program, without her having any chance of succeed.

Another option remains, more prosaic: to attack the decrees of application of the reform by means of a series of appeals before the Council of State. About thirty decrees are currently in preparation while the executive is counting on the entry into force of the reform on 1er september. On a political level, no opportunity is left to chance. On a strictly legal level, the decision of the Constitutional Council hardly reinforces a reform adopted without a vote in the National ***embly.