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New pension protests in France ahead of crucial votes

France faced another day of protests Sunday against a bitterly contested pension reform rammed through by President Emmanuel Macron's government, a day before crucial no-confidence votes in parliament.

New pension protests in France ahead of crucial votes
Protestors attend a demonstration near Les Invalides building on a 8th day of strikes and protests across the country. Photo: Alain JOCARD/AFP

After weeks of peaceful strikes and marches against raising the official retirement age from 62 to 64, police on Saturday closed the Place de la Concorde opposite parliament for demonstrations following two successive nights of clashes.

Some individual lawmakers were targeted, with Eric Ciotti — chief of the conservative Republicans party expected not to back the no-confidence motions — finding early Sunday that his constituency office had been pelted with rocks overnight.

“The killers who did this want to put pressure on my vote on Monday,” Ciotti wrote on Twitter, posting pictures showing smashed windows and threatening graffiti.

More than 80 people were arrested at a 4,000-strong Paris demonstration Saturday where some set rubbish bins on fire, destroyed bus stops and erected improvised barricades.

And 15 more were held in Lyon after police said “groups of violent individuals” triggered clashes.

Other demonstrations in cities around France passed off peacefully, with hundreds turning out in the Mediterranean port city Marseille.

“What do we have left apart from continuing to demonstrate?” said Romain Morizot, a 33-year-old telecoms engineer, at the Marseille protest.

After the government used a constitutional provision to bypass a parliamentary vote on pension reform, “now that will stoke social tensions everywhere,” Morizot added. “We’ll keep going, we don’t have a choice”.

Away from the streets of major cities, the hard-left CGT union said Saturday that workers would shut down France’s largest oil refinery in Normandy, warning that two more could follow on Monday.

So far, strikers had only prevented fuel deliveries from leaving refineries but not completely halted operations.

Industrial action has also halted rubbish collection in much of Paris, with around 10,000 tonnes of waste now on the streets as the government forces some binmen back to work.

A ninth day of wider strikes and protests is planned for Thursday.

People close to Macron told AFP that the president was “of course following developments” on the ground.

‘Add chaos to chaos’

Alongside raising the headline retirement age, Macron’s reform also increases the number of years people must pay into the system to receive a full pension.

The government says its changes are needed to avoid crippling deficits in the coming decades linked to France’s ageing population.

But opponents say the law places an unfair burden on low earners, women and people doing physically wearing jobs, and polls have consistently showed majorities opposed to the changes.

A survey of 2,000 people published in the Journal du Dimanche weekly on Sunday gave Macron an approval rating of 28 percent, its lowest since 2019’s mass “yellow vests” demonstrations against a new fuel tax.

READ ALSO: Could anti-Macron protests result in a Yellow Vest rerun in France?

After Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne used Article 49.3 of the constitution to pass the law without a vote in the lower house National Assembly, opponents’ last hope to block the reform is to topple the government in one of Monday’s no-confidence votes.

Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt told the JDD that “it’s not an admission of failure, but it’s heart-breaking” to have used the nuclear option to pass the reform.

The pensions changes were “too important to take the risk of playing Russian roulette,” he added, after weeks of concessions to the Republicans — long in favour of raising the retirement age — failed to bring enough conservative MPs on board to secure a majority.

Few lawmakers in the fractious Republicans group are expected to vote against the government in Monday’s no-confidence motions, brought by a small group of centrist MPs and the far-right National Rally.

Ciotti said he didn’t want to “add chaos to chaos”.

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POLITICS

France court to rule on Macron pension reform on April 14th

France's highest constitutional authority will rule on President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform on April 14th, it said on Wednesday, a verdict decisive for the future of the changes.

France court to rule on Macron pension reform on April 14th

The reforms were passed by parliament on March 16 after the government used a mechanism to bypass a vote by MPs,  inflaming nationwide protests.

They were considered adopted by parliament when the government survived two no confidence motions on March 20.

But the reforms can only come into law once they are validated by the Constitutional Council, which has the power to strike out some or even all of the legislation if deemed out of step with the constitution.

The council’s members — known as “les sages” (“the wise ones”) — will give two decisions when the ruling is made public on the legislation, whose headline measure raises the retirement age from 62 to 64.

The first will be on whether the legislation is in line with the French constitution.

READ MORE: Calendar: The latest French pension strike dates to remember

Referendum

And the second will be on whether a demand launched by the left for a referendum on the changes is admissible.

In line with government practice for contentious new laws, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne asked the council to rule on the changes on March 21.

But leftwingers in the lower house National Assembly and upper house Senate also asked the council for a ruling, as did far-right MPs in the lower house.

If a referendum was ruled admissible, backers would need to get the signatures of a tenth of the electorate — almost five million people — for it to be called.

The president of the council is Socialist Party grandee Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister who also served as finance minister and foreign minister in his long career.

Its verdict will be a critical juncture in Macron’s battle to impose the legislation, which has seen 10 days of major strikes and protests since January, most recently on Tuesday.

READ MORE: OPINION: In France even riots used to have rules, now political violence is spiralling

New clashes between police and protesters erupted in a movement that has been marked by increasing violence since the government used the constitution’s Article 49.3 to bypass a parliamentary vote and pass the legislation.

Unions have announced a new day of strikes and protests on April 6, just over a week before the council’s decision is announced.

“The absence of a response from the executive has led to a situation of tensions in the country which seriously worries us,” the unions said on Tuesday.

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