Pension reform, the flagship project of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, is already a reality. A few hours after the Constitutional Council removed the last legal obstacle, Macron announced the law in the early hours of Saturday that will raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64.
By publishing the law in the Official Gazette, the President of the Republic disregarded the trade unions, who had asked him not to promulgate it “to appease the anger of the country”. The left-wing opposition wanted to renegotiate it in parliament. The reform can now come into force from September. There is no turning back.
“The text is reaching the end of its democratic process,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said on Friday after learning of the constitutional decision. “Tonight there is no winner or loser.”
Macron has invited the unions to meet him at the Élysée next Tuesday to open a dialogue on the new social measures. The unions, which had made it a condition for the President not to announce pension reforms, declined the invitation and rallied for the May Day demonstrations.
The constitution on Friday upheld the essence of the law, excluding in whole or in part only six of the 36 articles that make up it. At the same time, he rejected an initiative by the parliamentary left to organize a referendum that, if won at the end of a long and complex process, would have set the retirement age at 62 and overturned the new law. The left has presented a second referendum initiative with a different wording. The court has to decide on May 3rd.
After the decision of the Constitutional Court became known, spontaneous protests were called in several cities in France. In Rennes, a group set fire to the entrance to a police station and a church; in Paris they erected barricades with fences and set garbage on fire. Police officers arrested 112 people.
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The pronouncement ends a four-month legislative process marked by tensions in the National Assembly, mass demonstrations in the streets and strikes in various sectors, but which never managed to paralyze the country. About seven out of ten French were against the reform.
In addition to raising the retirement age to 64, the new law will bring forward by eight years the 43-year pension requirement agreed in 2014 with Socialist President François Hollande. In the election campaign that led Macron to re-election a year ago, he promised pension reform. As of this morning you can say that you have complied.
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