Emmanuel Macron survives no-confidence vote by just NINE votes over hugely unpopular pension reforms
The government of French President Emmanuel Macron survived a vote of no confidence by just nine votes today.
The poll in the National Assembly on Monday was prompted by the head of state raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a parliamentary vote.
The no-confidence motion needed 287 votes to pass, but it got 278, a small margin of victory for Macron.
It means that the hugely unpopular pension reform will now go straight into law, but further opposition is inevitable.
Rioters have been on the streets of France since Macron bypassed the National Assembly last Thursday to introduce new legislation by presidential decree.
Lawmakers on the far left have documents that say ’64 years. It’s no’, ‘quote on the street’ and ‘we continue’ in today’s vote of confidence
Emmanuel Macron, pictured here Thursday at the Foreign Ministry in Paris, pushed through pension reforms without a vote.
As the result of the vote of no confidence was being read, opposition MPs from the left-wing France Unbowed party held up printed banners reading ‘RIP’, while chanting ‘Resign! Resignation!’
The close vote is a personal disaster for Macron’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who had tried to muster a parliamentary majority for the legislation.
Many politicians had been threatened with the guillotine if they supported the government of President Macron.
Police said macabre messages had been sent to parliamentarians preparing for the crucial election.
“Now I’m getting death threats,” said Agnes Evren, a congresswoman and vice chair of the Republican Party.
He said anonymous torturers evoked the guillotine of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette in Paris during the so-called “terror” that followed the 1789 revolution.
“These extremists refuse to debate, have no respect for their political opponents and are openly inspired by Terror,” Ms Evren tweeted.
Don’t underestimate the danger anymore. Each such threat will now be the subject of a complaint.
A police officer clashes with protesters at a demonstration in Lille, France, today as lawmakers attended votes on pension reforms and mistrust in Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Pedestrians walk past a fire made from household waste during protests in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on Saturday.
A French riot police officer looks at the fire during a demonstration in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on Saturday, against the plans.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne (pictured) tried to muster a parliamentary majority for the legislation today.
Frederique Meunier, of the Republican Party, said: “It’s as if they wanted to behead us.”
And Guillaume Gouffier Valente, a parliamentarian for Macron’s Renaissance Party, saw a scrawled hangman’s sign outside his office in Vincennes, east of Paris.
“He has since made a formal request to the Home Office for police protection for his threatened colleagues,” a party spokesman said.
Renaissance MP Brigitte Klinkert reported graffiti outside her office that read: ‘You vote against us, we’ll remember you.’
Other politicians were clear in their condemnation of the proposed reforms and the way they were being pushed forward.
Centrist MP Charles de Courson, who with his group tabled the left-wing motion, deplored the government’s decision to use special constitutional power to circumvent a vote on the pension bill last week.
‘How can we accept such contempt for parliament? How can we accept such conditions to consider a text that will have lasting effects on the lives of millions of our fellow citizens?’ he said.
Far-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot told the government that “people look at you as we look at someone who betrayed, with a mixture of anger and disgust.”
Laure Lavalette, of the far-right National Rally party, said “no matter what the result is, they have not managed to convince the French.”
There was a fourth night of violence in France on Sunday following Macron’s decision to bypass parliament last Thursday.
A protester holds a banner with Macron’s face reading “they have to come for me” at a protest in Paris on Saturday.
Protesters carry an Emmanuel Macron puppet at a demonstration in Nice, southern France, on Sunday.
A French police officer tries to extinguish flames at the entrance to a town hall in Lyon following a protest on Friday night.
Gangs roamed the streets of major cities, including Paris, burning effigies of the president and top ministers before police responded with tear gas and batons.
Strikes by garbage collectors in reaction to the bill, which have now reached 15 days in a row, have led to a large accumulation of waste in the capital.
The three main incinerators serving the French capital have been mostly blocked, as has a garbage sorting center northwest of Paris.
“The aim is to support the striking workers in Paris, to put pressure on this government that wants to pass this unfair, brutal, useless and ineffective law,” said Kamel Brahmi of the CGT union, speaking to workers at the Romainville rally. plant.
Some refineries that supply gas stations are at least partially blocked, and Transport Minister Clement Beaune said on France-Info radio he would take action if necessary to ensure fuel is still coming out.
Unions, demanding that the government simply withdraw the superannuation bill, have called for new protests across the country on Thursday.