03/12/2023 00:19 (act. 03/12/2023 00:30)
Numerous participants in rallies ©APA/AFP
The French Senate voted in favor of the government’s controversial pension reform in its first reading. 195 senators voted in favor of the bill on Sunday night, 112 rejected it and 37 abstained. Even if the vote in the heated race for reform is a success for France’s centrist government, the project is not over yet. Protests against the plans erupted again on Saturday.
President Emmanuel Macron’s government wants to gradually raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. In addition, the number of years of payment required for a full pension is expected to increase more rapidly.
Currently, the retirement age is 62. In fact, retirement starts later on average: those who have not paid enough time to be entitled to full compensation work longer. At age 67 there will then be a pension without any deductions, irrespective of the time of payment – the government wants to keep it. He wants to increase the minimum monthly pension to around 1,200 euros.
The government is sending the reform to parliament in an accelerated process. The text was therefore passed to the Senate without a vote on the first reading of the entire reform in the National Assembly. A commission of deputies and senators is due to meet on Wednesday to find a compromise between the National Assembly and the Senate. Both chambers of Parliament must then agree.
The center government does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. She awaits votes from conservative Republicans for reform. While conservatives in the Senate were now in agreement, the faction in the House of Representatives was recently divided. There is therefore speculation as to whether the government will turn to a special article in the constitution and ultimately pass the law without a National Assembly vote.
Hundreds of thousands of people across the country protested again on Saturday against pension reform. There were larger rallies in Paris, Nice and Toulouse. The Interior Ministry estimated the number of protesters at 368,000. Unions, on the other hand, expected up to a million people. 1.28 million people demonstrated on Tuesday. Unions called for more demonstrations and strikes on Wednesday.