Global Courant 2023-04-15 14:30:48
French President Emmanuel Macron signed a law to raise the state pension age that sparked mass protests, the government’s official gazette revealed on Saturday.
The promulgation of the law came after France’s constitutional council approved Friday’s major retirement age increase and follows months of demonstrations against the plan, which forced the government through parliament without a final vote.
The legislation, which will gradually raise the state pension age from 62 to 64, is deeply unpopular and protests erupted immediately when the Constitutional Council’s decision was announced.
Crowds marched through Paris on Friday evening, with some burning rubbish bins, as the entrance to a police station was set on fire in the northwestern city of Rennes.
Unions on Friday called on the government not to pass the legislation, despite the green light from the Constitutional Council, and urged workers to rally for Labor Day marches on May 1.
They turned down an invitation from Macron to meet on Tuesday.
The president has put his reputation as a reformer on the line with the pension changes, which he says are necessary to avoid billions of dollars in shortfalls each year by the end of the decade.
“Never give up, that’s my motto,” he said Friday ahead of the Constitutional Council’s verdict, when he visited Notre-Dame on the anniversary of a fire that destroyed Paris’ celebrated cathedral.
The government plans to apply the new legislation from September 1.
Francois Ruffin, a legislator from the left-wing LFI party, accused the government on Twitter of promulgating the pension bill “like thieves in the night”.
Opposition parties have resubmitted a proposal for a citizens’ referendum on the reform after the Constitutional Council rejected a first such proposal on Friday.
The pension system is a cornerstone of France’s cherished social protection model, and trade unions say additional funding could be found elsewhere, including by taxing the rich more heavily.
Public hostility to the reform has increased since the government, which does not have a majority in parliament, pushed the bill through without a final vote in March using special constitutional powers.
