France’s President Emmanuel Macron has promulgated his pension reform into law which includes raising the retirement age to 64 after the Constitutional Council on Friday approved the controversial plan despite months of mass protests that have damaged his leadership,
Euronews reports.
The Council's decision dismayed and enraged critics of the pension plan. Hundreds of union activists and others gathered peacefully in Paris Friday evening before some groups broke off in marches toward the historic Bastille plaza and beyond, setting fires to garbage bins and scooters as police fired tear gas or pushed them back.
There were also improvised demonstrations and riots in the cities of Marseille, Lyon, Nantes and Rennes, in the northwest of the country, where a police station was stormed and burnt down.
French unions called for a nationwide strike on May 1, which the CGT (General Confederation of Labour Union) Secretary-General said would be "massive" and "unprecedented".
"We call on all employees to put this date on their agenda and to come, with their colleagues, their neighbours, their families and their children. It will be festive; it will be important," she added.
Unions and Macron's political opponents vowed to maintain pressure on the government to withdraw the bill and activists threatened scattered new protests on Saturday.
Macron's office said he would enact the law in the coming days, and he has said he wants it implemented by the end of the year. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Friday's decision “marks the end of the institutional and democratic path of this reform,” adding that there was “no victor" in what has turned into a nationwide standoff and France's worst social unrest in years.
The council rejected some measures in the pension bill, but the higher age was central to Macron’s plan and the target of protesters’ anger. The government argued that the reform is needed to keep the pension system afloat as the population ages; opponents proposed raising taxes on the wealthy or employers instead and said the changes threaten a hard-won social safety net.
In a separate but related decision, the council rejected a request by left-wing lawmakers to allow for a possible referendum on enshrining 62 as the maximum official retirement age. The council will rule on a second, similar request, next month.
