how the Senate is preparing to unravel the Social Security budget voted by the deputies

Gérard Larcher as the new Penelope, the wife of Ulysses who unraveled at night the tapestry she weaved during the day to repel the advances of her suitors… The image may seem absurd, but it is the one that comes to mind as the budgetary texts arrive at the Luxembourg Palace, Wednesday November 19. Will the senators completely unravel what the deputies voted for during the debate on the Social Security budget? Starting with the suspension of the pension reform?

If Sébastien Lecornu had to negotiate with the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, it is the right and the center, the majority in the Senate, which hold the key in the other chamber of Parliament. And it is with pruning shears, or even a chainsaw, that the senators plan to cut out the fine parliamentary lacework resulting from the debates at the Palais-Bourbon, in the “revenues” and “expenses” sections.

“The Senate will reinstate pension reform. We have been voting for it for five years”promised Gérard Larcher at the end of October in an interview with Parisianin reference to an amendment increasing the legal retirement age that LR senators table each year during the discussion on the Social Security budget (PLFSS). “The Senate will correct the text. We know it and we know what its marks and red lines are”relativizes an advisor to the executive, who mirrors the uncertainty of the vote of the deputies.

This did not prevent Sébastien Lecornu from taking the lead and preparing the ground. The Prime Minister was invited by surprise on November 5 to a meeting of the presidents of groups and committees in the Senate. “He rubbed the senators the wrong way. Many people found him to be intelligent and clever”explains a participating senator. The head of government also came that evening to bring a message of responsibility. “If there is censorship on the budget, then there will be resignation and therefore dissolution”he declared as a call not to fall into one-upmanship. “I will not be the Prime Minister who will transfer power with Jordan Bardella”, he added, according to those present.

“He wanted to dramatize the situation”comments Olivier Henno, senator from the centrist Union group, present that evening and not really convinced that the Prime Minister will be heard by his colleagues. “Sébastien Lecornu let go a lot, let go too much. It’s a socialist budget. That’s the truth,” he continues. “As far as we are concerned at the centrist Union, we are going to maintain the course of financial rigor, that is to say that we are going to restore the text to its initial version, that of the government,” he concludes.

Beyond the pension reform, it is most of the amendments coming from the PS deputies that they want to bring down. And if some finally remain, “it’s not because they are socialists, but because they will be useful. We don’t have a deal with the PS”warns the one who is also vice-president of the social affairs committee of the upper house of Parliament.

The senators from the right and the center therefore do not seem inclined to make life easier for Sébastien Lecornu. “The light and the microphones are finally shining on them, they were just waiting for this. They will take advantage of it,” tempers an advisor to the executive to explain this maximalist and intransigent position. Does this also find its source in the balance of power within the Republicans? The question of the presence of LR ministers within the Lecornu II government provoked a fairly violent clash on the right between deputies and senators, the latter pushing for a more assertive break with macronism.

In this perspective, one man will be particularly scrutinized: Bruno Retailleau. After his departure from the Ministry of the Interior, he regained his seat in the Senate but did not wish to regain his position as president of the LR group. However, the ambitious party boss still intends to weigh in. “He will follow the debates very closelypromises those around him. We’re going to hear it, he’s going to open it because we need to review the budget copy.”

Sébastien Lecornu is, however, not directly threatened by the senators, since they cannot censor him. However, once the PLFSS senatorial version has been voted on, a joint committee, made up of seven senators and seven deputies representing the forces in the two chambers, will meet. If it is not conclusive, the text will go back to second reading and it is the National Assembly which will have the last word. Why does Sébastien Lecornu then feel the need to cajole the senators of the center and the right?

“It can be painful politically for the government to be criticized for not examining the savings options that we are going to propose to it,” replies Bruno Retailleau’s entourage. On the government side, we want to believe “that the hypothesis that we can vote for a PLFSS exists”. “The question of the debates in the Senate is to know to what extent LR and centrist senators will assume their right-wing values ​​without making a copy that is unacceptable for the socialists. It’s a balance”explains the executive advisor cited above.

It is in search of this balance that Sébastien Lecornu will set out. Can he benefit from a favorable prejudice among his peers? The Prime Minister was elected senator in 2020, but he has never sat at the Luxembourg Palace since he has been in government continuously since the arrival of Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée in 2017. “Gérard Larcher and Hervé Marseille were very angry with him, because while busy with his dialogue with the socialist deputies, he had completely forgotten the Senatetestifies a senator LR. There, things are better. His appearance at the conference of presidents on November 5 was appreciated.”

The Prime Minister will therefore have to learn the grammar of the upper house from Wednesday, during accelerated training without a safety net. He must also relearn how to speak to the right. A goal perhaps easier, since it is his native language.