Anticonstitutionnellement ?

 All of France has been holding her breath waiting for the decision of the Conseil Constitutionnel.

This group of the great and the good of France meets to consider, among other things, whether a law proposed by the government and adopted by the parliament is nevertheless against the French constitution.  It is one of France's democratic checks and balances.

The law to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 has been controversial. It is unwelcome to many French people, who consider that the economic need to change the retirement law has not been sufficiently well proven. Many French people do in fact work beyond the age of 62, but they can retire at that age.

The law was also unwelcome in the National Assembly, where M. Macron's party does not have a clear majority. After long discussions, Mme Borne, the Prime Minister, announced that the Assembly was not going to spend all this time in debate to in the end achieve nothing, so she announced that the law was being adopted by means of the clause 49.3 of the French constitution, which gives the government the power to force a law through without a vote.

This power is controversial, but is actually used quite a lot to prevent time-wasting and the blockage of governmental progress.

However such a law still has to be approved by the Conseil Constitutionnel to ensure that it is not anti constitutional and that is has not been adopted anticonstitutionnellement. (This is supposed to be the longest word in the French language and people love saying it).

So what happens now?

Good question. 

Some suggest that M. Macron could announce a referendum to give the people a chance to express themselves.

I don't think he'll do that.

The other big suggestion is that he will apply the law as quickly as possible so the country can proceed to accepting the change and 'move on'.

It is possible that this will be the last big change he'll be able to make in his presidency, and that from now on the government will be in maintenance mode.

We'll see.


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