In crisis, Macron presents pension reform to the French Parliament

The government's goal is to unify all 42 pension systems into one 'universal system', based on points per hour of work

The President of France , Emmanuel Macron , presents this Monday, 17, his proposal for pension reform to be debated among the deputies of the National Assembly. The bill has been rejected by hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country in more than two months of protests and strikes that have paralyzed public transport and garbage collection.

At the end of nine days for debate and proposing amendments, the project must be voted on by the plenary by March 3, as planned by République en Marche (REM), Macron's party. The matter will still be evaluated by the Senate, probably until the end of March, and will undergo a final vote until mid-June.

The parliamentary coalition led by REM, which has other legends, commands the National Assembly with 300 of the 577 seats in the house. Even so, Macron's legend faces opposition to approve reform in the Parliament, especially La France Insoumise (LFI), a left-wing group led by MP Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Although the LFI has only 17 deputies, the group has already proposed more than 19,000 amendments to the reform with the aim of obstructing it during the evaluation period in a special commission, between 3 and 12 February.

Overloaded with more than 22,000 amendments, the commission sent the original project to the floor, without proposals for changes, for the first time in history, according to the French newspaper Le Monde .

As deputy Éric Coquerel of the LFI stated, the objective of the opposition, which intends to repeat the strategy during the debate period, is to postpone the first vote until after the municipal elections, to be held on March 15 and 22, or to force the government to resort to approval by Parliament.

According to article 49 of the French Constitution of 1958, the government has the right to pass a law without needing a debate or vote by Parliament as long as it is not opposed by at least 289 deputies. Controversial for its anti-democratic character, the appeal was called more than 85 times until 2019. 

REM leader in the Assembly, deputy Marie Lebec, affirmed that the situation "does not consider" adopting article 49, since it "would kill the debate". But, as the French newspaper Le Monde reports , members of the REM have already warned “not having a problem” in resorting to the measure, which would further undermine Macron's fragile government.