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A top French politician was on Saturday sacked from his job as second-in-command of the centre right Les Républicains (LR) for repeatedly going against the party line on pension reforms.
Aurélien Pradié was dismissed from his role as vice-president for condemning segments of Emmanuel Macron’s controversial revamp which his party backed.
LR supremo Eric Ciotti condemned what he called Pradié’s personal adventure.
“His repeated positions were no longer consistent with the values of coherence and unity that must guide the Republican right,” the LR president said in a statement.
Pradié, 36, effectively declared war with his party when he maintained that workers should be entitled to a full pension after paying contributions for 43 years.
His fate was sealed when his stance was hailed by left-wing parties who are campaigning against Macron’s proposals.
Outrage
“Ninety percent of working people are opposed to retirement at 64,” tweeted La France Insoumise MP Raquel Garrido.
“So it is normal that MPs of all stripes are reluctant to apply such anti-democratic instructions as voting for a law that they do not believe in. Ciotti’s disciplinary measure against Pradié is from another time.”
The LR chief is understood to have made his decision to sanction Pradié after crisis talks with party elders.
“The only fate that counts is that of the French for whom we are committed,” said Pradié in a tweet after learning of his fate.
Pradié had been treading on thin ice with both the liberal and conservative sections of the LR.
LR politicians in the Senate – France’s upper chamber of parliament – were concerned that Pradié’s outbursts would undermine concessions on the reform that had been negotiated.
“We could not continue with this deplorable show where MPs are only trying to make moves without ever working on the substance,” MEP Agnes Evren told the French news agency AFP.
Macron’s reforms have led to widespread industrial action. On 16 February, a fifth day of action took place to protest against the plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old.
While trains and the Paris metro were running almost normally, air travel suffered its biggest disruptions to date as more air traffic controllers went on strike.
Trade unions said they wanted to to pressure MPs in the lower house of the French parliament – the National Assembly – who had been been debating the pension reform law for two weeks.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
