PARIS, April 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France’s top constitutional body has cleared the Macron government’s highly unpopular move to raise the state pension age from 62 to 64.
The Constitutional Council also rejected calls for a referendum by political opponents but struck out some of the reforms citing legal flaws.
Twelve days of protests have been held against the reforms since January.
In March, the government used a special constitutional power to force through the changes without a vote.
President Emmanuel Macron argues the reforms are essential to prevent the pension system collapsing and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne tweeted on Friday that “tonight there is no winner, no loser”.
Labour minister Olivier Dussopt has vowed to improve the employment rates of those aged over 50 in an effort to ease concerns about the financial impacts of the raised retirement age.
The authorities had banned demonstrations in front of the Constitutional Council building in Paris until Saturday morning, but crowds of protesters had gathered nearby and the ruling was met with jeers.
Some demonstrators chanted they would continue protesting until the changes were withdrawn.
Later, several fires were set across the city as riot police tried to contain the situation, sometimes using tear gas. A Paris police official said 112 people have been arrested.
Fires were also lit during demonstrations in Rennes and Nantes, while there were tense standoffs at times between protesters and police in Lyon.
Trade unions made a last-ditch appeal to the president not to sign the pension-age increase into law, faced with the public’s “massive rejection of this reform”. The unions pointed out that six concessions that had been added to the reforms had been rejected by the court, so what was already unfair was now “even more unbalanced”.
Among the reforms struck down by the nine members of the Constitutional Council was a so-called “senior index” aimed at urging companies with more than 1,000 workers to take on employees over 55.
While the Élysée Palace has said the president is open to dialogue, he is expected to push through the law within two days. Dussopt has said he expects the reforms to be implemented by the start of September.
The unions called on workers across France to return to the streets on May 1, in another day of national mobilisation against the reforms.
The left-wing Nupes political alliance was one of the groups that lodged an appeal with the court over the reforms and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said the “fight” would continue.
“The Constitutional Council’s decision shows that it is more attentive to the needs of the presidential monarchy than to those of the sovereign people,” he said.
Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally, which had also appealed to the court, responded on social media that “the political fate of the pension reform is not sealed”.
While the court rejected an initial bid for a referendum on the reforms, it will decide next month on a further proposal for a national vote by the left. — NNN-AGENCIES
