Paris (EFE).- The French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, has acknowledged that there is uncertainty as to whether any of the two motions of censure that are going to be debated this afternoon and that could topple the government of President Emmanuel Macron can prosper. , and his controversial pension reform.
“You have to be humble in front of a vote”, Le Maire pointed out this morning in an interview with the BFMTV channel, in which he admitted “uncertainty” about the result of the vote in those motions of censure, which will be processed from from 16:00 local (15:00 GMT) in the National Assembly.
The key to that vote will be what the deputies of the classic right-wing party, Los Republicanos (LR), who are divided between the leadership, which opposes censorship, and an indeterminate group of rebels, who are in favor of overthrow of the Macron Executive and the pension reform.
Several of them, such as Aurélien Pradié and Maxime Minot, have indicated this morning that they will support at least the motion of no confidence formalized by a small centrist group, LIOT (Freedoms, Independents, Overseas and Territories), which is known above all to have the support of the deputies of the NUPES left-wing coalition and of the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.
Minot stated, in an interview on the France 2 channel, that he is aware that “a good ten or even fifteen” LR deputies will support LIOT’s motion of no confidence.
In principle, it would take around thirty to overthrow the government, with which the most probable result is that the cabinet of the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, will survive, and consequently the pension reform, which was adopted by decree last year, will also survive. Thursday.
The Government then resorted to a constitutional device (article 49.3) to skip the vote in the Assembly, since it feared that it would not get enough votes.
This morning, Le Maire once again justified this reform – which plans to delay the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years – to balance the pension system on the horizon of 2030, and he has done so by insisting that France has a public debt of three trillion euros and it is time to “restore the public accounts”.
“We have entered a new financial era in which interest rates are higher” and this has already translated into an increase in the debt burden, which has gone from 20,000 million euros in 2021 to 30,000 in 2022, has indicated.
The debate on motions of censure is going to take place under the pressure of a series of strikes in transport, refineries or education, and protests such as roadblocks this morning in the vicinity of Rennes or Lorient , in Brittany.
In the air, due to the strikes by air traffic controllers, 30% of the flights have been canceled at the Parisian airport of Orly and 20% at that of Marseille.
20% of high-speed trains (TGV), 40% of other long-distance trains, a third of regional trains and in the vicinity of Paris, depending on the lines, between one and two thirds have been cancelled.