PARIS: Protesters disrupted traffic in Paris on Friday as angry critics, political opponents and labor unions around
France blasted President Emmanuel Macron‘s decision to force a bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 through parliament without a vote.
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France’s Senate passes controversial pensions reform
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<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>The French Senate adopted President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform plan whose key measure is raising the retirement age by two years to 64.</p>
<p>One hundred and ninety-five members of the upper house of the French Parliament voted for the text while 112 voted against.<br /><br /></p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>The protests and rolling strikes aimed to pressure the government to withdraw the pension plan, which it said is essential to ensure the pension system does not run out of money.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>The protests and rolling strikes have affected refineries, public transport and garbage collections.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>”After hundreds of hours of discussions, the Senate adopted the pension reform plan. It is a key step to make a reform happen that will guarantee the future of our pension system,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>PM Borne added she was ‘totally’ committed to ensure the text will be definitively adopted in the coming days.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>Now that the Senate has adopted the bill, it will be reviewed by a joint committee of lower and upper house lawmakers.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>The outcome of that still seems uncertain in the lower chamber, the National Assembly, where Macron’s party needs allies’ votes for a majority.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>If the government fears it won’t have enough votes in the lower house, it is still possible for it to push the text through without a parliamentary vote, via a so-called 49:3 procedure.</p>
<p>Fewer than expected on Saturday’s march as authorities had expected up to 1 million people to take part.<br /></p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>On Tuesday, 1.28 million people took to the streets, the highest turnout since the start of the protest movement, according to government figures.</p>
<p>Paris police said they had made 32 arrests after some protesters threw objects at security forces, with rubbish bins burned and windows broken.<br /></p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>Macron twice turned down urgent calls by unions to meet with him in a last-ditch attempt to get him to change his mind.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>Philippe Martinez, boss of the hard-left CGT union, said, “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?”</p>
<p>He said he chose to “make the French work a little longer” because other options would have involved “decreasing pensions, raising taxes or letting our children and grandchildren carry the financial burden.”</p><br />
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>The reforms would also increase the number of years people have to make contributions in order to receive a full pension.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>French economy has been targeted by union calls for indefinite strikes, including in rail and air transport, power stations, natural gas terminals and rubbish collection.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>Uncollected rubbish has begun to accumulate in some of the capital’s neighbourhoods, and airlines cancelled around 20 percent of their flights scheduled at French airports.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>More protests are scheduled for Wednesday, the day a joint committee made up of seven senators and seven National Assembly lawmakers meet to seek a compromise on the texts approved in the two houses.</p>
Opposition parties were expected to start procedures later Friday for a no-confidence vote on the government led by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. The vote would likely take place early next week.
Macron ordered Borne on Thursday to wield a special constitutional power to push the highly unpopular pension bill through without a vote in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament.
His calculated risk infuriated opposition lawmakers, many citizens and unions. Thousands gathered in protest Thursday at the Place de la Concorde, which faces the National Assembly building. As night fell, police officers charged the demonstrators in waves to clear the Place. Small groups then moved through nearby streets in the chic Champs-Elysees neighborhood,. setting street fires.
Protests held across France as President Emmanuel Macron plans to raise retirement age to 64
Similar scenes repeated themselves in numerous other cities, from Rennes and Nantes in eastern France to Lyon and the southern port city of Marseille, where shop windows and bank fronts were smashed, according to French media.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told radio station RTL on Friday that 310 people were arrested overnight. Most of the arrests, 258, were made in Paris, according to Darmanin.
The trade unions that had organized strikes and marches against a higher retirement age said more rallies and protest marches would take place in the days ahead. “This retirement reform is brutal, unjust, unjustified for the world of workers,” they declared.
Garbage, protests pile up in Paris over pension bill
Macron has made the proposed pension changes the key priority of his second term, arguing that reform is needed to make the French economy more competitive and to keep the pension system from diving into deficit. France, like many richer nations, faces lower birth rates and longer life expectancy.
Macron decided to invoke the special power during a Cabinet meeting a few minutes before a scheduled vote in the National Assembly, where the legislation had no guarantee of securing majority support. The Senate adopted the bill earlier Thursday.
Opposition lawmakers demanded the government to step down. If the expected no-confidence motion passes, which requires approval from more than half of the Assembly, it would be a first since 1962 and force the government to resign. It would also spell the end Macron’s retirement reform plan.
Macron could reappoint Borne if he chooses, and a new Cabinet would be named. If the motion does not succeed, the pension bill would be considered adopted.
