Late last Saturday night, the French Senate “voted” the pension reformwhich increases the retirement age by 2 years (to 64).

At the same time yesterday in over 250 cities and towns of the country the voice of its rejection was raised. It was a resounding “no” to this reform from the thousands of demonstrators.

For a leader who claims to be “the clock setter” in his country, many would speak of a “Pyrrhic victory”. How will President Macron govern next with a clamoring people?

After all, after the Senate, the reform still has a way to go before the final result. Next Thursday he returns to Parliament after previously passing through the “sieve” of a 14-member Joint Committee of 7 senators and seven deputies on Wednesday. The aim of the Commission will be to reach a common text. This text should be voted by the Parliament. In this case, 2 scenarios apply: either the government will manage to secure a majority with the help of the Republicans of the Right, or it will impose it without a vote thanks to the constitutional tools provided by the Fifth Republic.

In search of a majority in Parliament

On the way to Macron’s victory in Parliament, nothing is certain: To gather the 289 deputies he needs for a majority, he relies on the 170 of his party and the 80 deputies of his partners (Francois Bayrou and Edouard Philippe), he therefore lacks around 40 MPs. His only hope is the 61 right-wing Republican deputies, but President Eric Ciotti has not been able to rally them for a unanimous positive vote. This was also seen during the first reading of the reform (before he left for the Senate) with the negative positions of Aurelien Pradier (number two of the party), whom Eric Ciotti was forced to remove from the hierarchy.

Articles 49.3 and 44.3 are bombs for parliamentarism

Macron therefore walks on the razor’s edge with the risk of falling. The French, however, know that once again it will succeed (64% bfmtv), since it has the “atomic bomb” as they call article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows him to pass the reform. He has proactively included it in the budget chapter – social security, for which he had already used 49.3 times 11 times.

In the Senate, the nuclear weapon used there is called “Article 44.3” which translates to blocking the vote. With this article the government faced the large number of left-wing amendments (nearly 4000) that risked blocking the vote based on the time limit they had for today, Sunday. By using 44.3 the consideration of articles stopped at 7 (out of 20 in total), thousands of amendments were canceled and only 70 chosen by the government were retained.

So, miraculously!, the Senators made it a day faster and voting ended last night at 11:40pm. After 10 days of discussions, the new version of the reform with the changes that the Right of the Senate managed to incorporate was voted with 195 votes in favor and 112 against. That the “Senate of the wise” in the Senate succeeded gave a first satisfaction to the government, which was not hidden by the attending Labor Minister Olivier Dishopt, left a bitter disappointment on the left, while for many it opens a large chapter of question marks, about “where it is heading the democratic state’ in the country.