The French Senate has approved the controversial pension reform which raises the minimum age for retirement from work

He senate of france approved this Wednesday the article of the government project under discussion pension reform raising the minimum age from 62 to 64 years for retirement from work.

The controversial initiative received the approval of the upper house with 201 votes in favor and 115 against. However, to enter into force, it must also have the consent of deputies, who have a legal deadline for discussions until March 26.

The project sponsored by the president’s government Emmanuel Macron It calls for the retirement age to be raised progressively, at the rate of three months a yearas of September 1, 2023. Therefore, the 64-year requirement would only be met in 2030.

In parallel, the initiative proposes that in order to obtain full pension credit, without discounts, the required contribution period increases from 42 to 43 years, at a rate of one quarter per year until 2027.

The reform is strongly resisted in society. According to various surveys, two out of three French expressed their refusal. In addition, the main trade union organizations carried out six days of general strikes and massive street protests.

Society’s rejection of pension reform in France

Since the pension reform was presented in January, unions have staged large mobilisations, including the largest in three decades: on Tuesday, just one day before the Senate approved the initiative, 3.5 million people manifested in more than 200 rallies called across the country, according to the CGT union, while the Interior Ministry estimated 1.28 million. However, they have failed to persuade the government to back down.

“Was a historic dayfor the scale of the strikes and mobilisation”, the main unions said in a joint statement in which they insisted that “the government must withdraw its project”.

Unions called to new massive demonstration for next Saturdayand warned that the failure to respond by the Executive “inevitably leads to a situation that could become explosive”.

This Tuesday, 80 percent of high-speed trains (TGV) on average and virtually all other conventional long-distance trains.

On international lines, there was no service on the Paris-Barcelona corridor or on lines between France and Germany; only one return train on connections with Italy, and 20 percent of the usual ones on connections with Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the strike also included the cancellation of 20 percent of flights at Charles de Gaulle and 30 percent at the other Paris airport, as well as those of Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse. .

IT​