Far left dismisses pension reform suspension as inadequate, Socialists take victory lap, far right embraces 'stability'

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00:00later on today the French National Assembly will be voting on a bill to

00:14suspend the president's pension reform plan the legislation which was a key

00:18policy of Emmanuel Macron's would have raised a retirement age in this country

00:21to 64 if the measure which was a key demand by the socialist passes it would

00:27effectively delay that reform until after the presidential next presidential

00:31election the far-right National Rally Party of Marine Le Pen say they will vote

00:36in favor of the suspending the reform we can now bring in Renaud Foucaire

00:41economist at Lancaster University thank you so much for joining us on the

00:44program today if this measure passes how safe will the local new government be

00:49going forward there is always a bit of unpredictability but this would be the

00:55moment where the the pact is sealed so the deal offered by Le Cornu was we move

01:00the discussion we move the debate about the pension reform to after the next

01:05presidential election if the socialists vote today in favor of this suspension

01:09there will be a choreography so perhaps there will be no vote in the end it will

01:13go to the Senate etc but in the end the deal would be sealed between the social

01:17Democrats the conservative and the centrists and so until the next big

01:22hurdle the government is safe and what what explains the the ruffled feathers

01:28between the left-wing block the L the far-left France unbowed accusing the

01:34socialists of betrayal what's going on there so I think what's going on is that

01:39for a long long time there has been a debate between the social Democrats and the

01:44France unbowed about whether we should try to get something in exchange for some

01:49form of support for the government and here because for the last few years the

01:54big ask of the left was to suspend or at least do something about the pension

01:58reform the social Democrats they come back and now they show look we did it we

02:03went with the government we sat down we bargained and we get a very very big prize

02:09that's terrible news for the far left because for the far left it means that

02:13actually you can achieve something and so because at the moment they are fighting

02:17very hard to know who is going to be the somehow the the front runner for the

02:22left in the next presidential election this is very bad news for Mélenchon

02:26unless he managed to somehow convince people that this is not a real win which I

02:30think it's very hard to do because really there is no pension reform until the

02:35next presidential election so whoever wins can cancel it if they want to now the

02:40far-right national rally party of Marine Le Pen say they will be voting in favor of

02:44suspending this reform that means pushing it back until after the next

02:48presidential election why is she doing this because I thought she had said she's

02:53going to block everything so why vote for this measure then I think it's really

02:59about showing stability so no there is within the rassemble national a lot of

03:04uncertainty Marine Le Pen as you know being convicted might not be able to run

03:09herself for president they don't want a thing to lose time no having another

03:13election which would be the consequence if they don't vote this true so having

03:16another election would mean that somehow they would have to put Bardella up front

03:21as possible prime minister what if he wins who is running for president what

03:25happens who is going to have to deal with all the problems of France right now for

03:29two years I think they are much more comfortable sending this message look the

03:33left is trying to bring chaos we are stability we don't agree with that we are not the

03:38government but we are stability vote for us in 2027 and you're going to have someone

03:43responsible in charge and I think it's a very powerful message I know that Emmanuel

03:48Macron still has time left in the job his presidency is not run out yet but you know

03:54as well as I do that he is a lame duck president in this country this reform raising the retirement

04:00age fixing France's pension system was one of his key legacies essentially but now if he

04:08essentially places this reform on ice where does it leave his legacy if I am Emmanuel Macron right

04:16now I would be kind of bullish that this is going to survive because it's very clever to move it to

04:22after the next presidential election whoever will be in charge of France in 2027 will inherit from the

04:28same budget situation and even worse because Le Cornu has said I'm not going to do anything

04:33I'm waiting so we keep the deficit we keep everything all the big problems are postponed

04:37so they will have someone in 2027 be it Le Pen be it Bardella being someone on the center left

04:43a centrist will face the same problem and will want to do something if the first move they do

04:49is to cancel the pension reform they need to find billions and billions and billions

04:54so starting your job by doing that is very hard so I guess somehow a lot of people might just hope

05:00that people forget about it and so they could come up with a pension reform that looked like the one

05:05that Macron wanted in his first election so move to a point-based system something like that that's

05:10doable but that will happen after the presidential election I would be surprised if whoever wins the

05:16next presidential election goes back to 62 or even 60 as some have claimed as a pension age as person

05:23in charge of president and government we'll see what happens thank you very much for joining us on

05:29program today

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