French court approves Macron’s plan to raise retirement age
The Constitutional Council decides in favor of the main provisions of the proposal, including raising the retirement age to 64 years.
France’s constitutional court has approved key elements of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, paving the way for him to implement the unpopular changes that have sparked months of protests and strikes.
The nine-member Constitutional Council on Friday ruled in favor of key provisions, including raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, ruling that the legislation complied with the law.
Six small proposals were rejected, including attempts to force major companies to publish data on how many people over 55 they employ, and a separate idea to create a special contract for older workers.
The decision represents a victory for Macron, but analysts said it came at a great personal cost to the 45-year-old as the country was disrupted for months with sometimes violent protests that left hundreds injured.
The president’s personal ratings are close to their lowest levels ever, and many voters are outraged by his decision to defy hostile public opinion and ram the pension bill through the lower house without a vote.
“Stay the course, that’s my motto,” Macron said Friday as he inspected Notre Dame Cathedral’s restoration efforts, four years after a devastating fire destroyed the Gothic masterpiece.
Police expected up to 10,000 people to gather again in Paris later on Friday, with the presence of several hundred left-wing hardliners raising fears of more vandalism and clashes that have marred recent rallies.
The Constitutional Council, a short walk from the Louvre in the center of the French capital, is secured with barriers and dozens of riot police stand guard nearby.
opponents
It remains to be seen whether the months-long effort by unions to block the changes will continue, with union leaders saying they would respect Friday’s court ruling and support waning among mainstream workers.
“The battle continues and must gather strength,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise, wrote on Twitter.
Far-right Rassemblement National figurehead Marine Le Pen added that the reform’s fate was “unsealed” despite Friday’s decision.
Last month, a strike by Parisian garbage collectors left the capital littered with 10,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish, while trains, oil refineries and schools have been regularly shut down since January.
About 380,000 people took to the streets nationwide on Thursday in the latest day of union-led action, according to the Interior Ministry.
But that was a fraction of the nearly 1.3 million who demonstrated at the height of the March protests.
In a second decision on Friday, the court rejected an attempt by opposition lawmakers to force a referendum on an alternative pension law that would have kept the retirement age at 62.
France is currently lagging behind most of its European neighbours, many of whom have raised their retirement age to 65 or more.
‘Sustainable’ model
Opponents of the law have said it is unfair to unskilled workers who started working at a young age, while critics also said it undermines workers’ right to a long retirement.
The average life expectancy in France is 82 years.
Macron has repeatedly called the change “necessary” to avoid annual pension shortfalls expected to reach 13.5 billion euros ($14.8 billion) by 2030, according to government figures.
“I am proud of the French social model and I defend it, but if we want to make it sustainable, we have to produce more,” he said during a trip to the Netherlands on Wednesday.
“We need to reindustrialize the country. We need to reduce unemployment and we need to increase the amount of work delivered in the country. This pension reform is part of that.”