Ignoring strikes, French Senate approves Macron's pension reform plan

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
12 Mar 2023 10:23

French senators pass the pension reform by 195 votes to 112, bringing the package another step closer to becoming law.

French senators attending a session in the Senate in Paris, July 16, 2020 (AFP)

France's Senate voted late Saturday to approve a deeply unpopular reform to the country's pension system, hours after demonstrators took to the streets to oppose the cornerstone policy of French President Emmanuel Macron's second term in office.

Senators passed the reforms by 195 votes to 112, bringing the package another step closer to becoming law. A committee will now sort out a final draft, which will then be submitted to both the Senate and National Assembly for a final vote.

"An important step was taken this evening with a broad vote on the pension reform text in the Senate," French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told AFP after the vote, adding that she believed the government had a parliamentary majority to get the reforms passed into law.

Should Macron's government fail to assemble the necessary majority, however, Borne could deploy a rarely used and highly controversial constitutional tool, known as article 49/3, to push the legislation through without a vote.

Unions, which have fiercely opposed the measures, still hoped on Saturday to force Macron to back down.

"This is the final stretch," Marylise Leon, deputy leader of the CFDT union, told the broadcaster Franceinfo on Saturday. "The endgame is now."

Tensions flared Saturday evening, with Paris police saying they had made 32 arrests after some protesters threw objects at security forces.

NOT ON BBC NEWS.#Paris police charge and attack protestors with batons 🤬 pic.twitter.com/yvU5LAOpvz
— Anti Lockdown Alliance(GLOBAL) (@Demo2020cracy) March 11, 2023

This week, Macron twice turned down urgent calls by unions to meet with him in an attempt to get him to change his mind. The President's actions made unions "very angry", expressed Philippe Martinez, boss of the left CGT union.

"When there are millions of people in the streets, when there are strikes and all we get from the other side is silence, people wonder: What more do we need to do to be heard?" Martinez said, calling for a referendum on the pensions reform.

On the last big strike and protest day on Tuesday, turnout was just under 1.3 million people according to police, and more than three million according to unions.

The reform's headline measure is a hike in the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62, seen by many as unfair to people who started working young.

The reforms would also increase the number of years people have to make contributions in order to receive a full pension.

Protesters say that women, especially mothers, are also at a disadvantage under the new reforms.

Several sectors in the French economy have been targeted by union calls for indefinite strikes, including rail and air transport, power stations, natural gas terminals, and rubbish collection.

On Saturday in Paris, urban transit was little affected by stoppages, except for some suburban train lines. But uncollected rubbish has begun to accumulate in some of the capital's neighborhoods, and airlines canceled around 20% of their flights scheduled at French airports.

An opinion poll published by broadcaster BFMTV on Saturday found that 63% of French people approved of the protests against the reform, and 54% were also in favor of the strikes and blockages in some sectors.

Some 78%, however, said they believed that Macron would end up getting the reform adopted.