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Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age in France by two years to 64 is meeting stiff resistance in parliament and on the streets, as legislators start debating the draft law and unions hold a national strike on Tuesday.
Opposition politicians have filed a blizzard of 20,000 amendments to slow down the debate, with the vast majority from the leftwing Nupes alliance that opposes any increase in the retirement age.
Across the country, protests are gathering pace with more than a million people expected to attend two demonstrations this week. A recent Harris Interactive poll confirms the public’s hardening stance, with only 35 per cent supporting the government’s proposal, nine points lower than in late December.
But it is in parliament where the real risk lies since prime minister Élisabeth Borne has yet to assemble a majority needed to pass the draft law, despite making concessions. The labour minister was shouted down as he presented the plan in the National Assembly on Monday and the debate was temporarily suspended.
The travails of the pension reform are a sign of how Macron’s second-term agenda has been complicated by his party losing legislative elections in June, leaving the president’s centrist alliance with 250 MPs. They need to win over opposition politicians to reach 289 votes, or convince some to abstain to get to a majority.
The government does have the power to override lawmakers and pass legislation by decree under the French constitution, but given the sensitivity of the topic, Borne has so far sought to win over wary MPs. “I want to find a majority,” she told the Journal du Dimanche. “My efforts have all gone in that direction in recent weeks and months.”
As part of her strategy to garner the roughly 40 additional votes needed, Borne has been trying to reach a deal with the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party. Initially, it looked like the group of 61 MPs led by Eric Ciotti would say yes as long as the government acquiesced to certain changes, such as raising the lowest pensions. The LR has long supported raising the retirement age to 64 or 65 out of a desire to clean up public finances.
But a rebel faction within the LR has emerged and is pushing for further concessions to soften the impact on people who start work at a young age. Borne sought to address their concerns on Sunday by agreeing to an amendment that would allow people who began working between 20 and 21 years old to retire at 63 instead of 64, in an expansion of an existing scheme for workers with “long careers”.
Aurélien Pradié, an MP from the south-west Lot region who is the LR’s number two and leader of the rebels, shot down Borne’s idea as “a trick” that they would not fall for. “We have put our conditions on the table so now it is up to the government,” Pradié said. “If they do not accept our amendment without changing a single comma, they will not get the votes they need.”
Macron’s government has argued that raising the retirement age is an indispensable measure to ensure the viability of France’s pension system, which relies on current workers to fund payments to retirees. Otherwise, deficits would pile up as the population ages, it said.
The proposal aims to generate €18bn in annual cost savings by 2030 but about one-third would then be spent on sweeteners to soften the impact on the most vulnerable workers, such as by raising minimum pensions to €1,200 before tax.
Further weakening Macron’s hand are the presidential ambitions of both his allies and his opponents as they vie to replace him in 2027, when the constitution’s two-term limits mean he cannot run again.
Some within Macron’s own centrist alliance have begun sniping at the reform plan. Naïma Moutchou, an MP for the Horizons party led by Macron’s former prime minister and presidential hopeful Édouard Philippe, said the party’s 29 legislators would be “loyal but demanding” while pushing for changes.
Meanwhile, the Modem party, which is led by François Bayrou who also holds presidential ambitions, has been pushing for a review clause that would require a parliamentary review of the changes in 2027 or earlier.
With friends like these, it is no surprise that Macron’s pensions reform is sputtering in parliament, said Bruno Palier, an expert at Sciences Po university in Paris. “Everyone with ambitions in 2027 is positioning themselves because they know pension reform is a very visible and salient issue that shapes voters’ choices,” he said.
“Even if Macron gets this through, it may well end up being a pyrrhic victory that feeds the populist narrative that the elites do not listen to them and helps the far right.”
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