Bitter pension battle turns to democratic crisis as Macron bypasses French parliament

Lawmakers from the leftwing opposition sang the French national anthem as Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne arrived at the National Assembly on Thursday to announce that the government would force through its pension reform without a vote. © Pascal Rossignol, Reuters

Widespread rejection of French President Emmanuel Macron’s planned pension overhaul was a key factor in his failure to win a parliamentary majority following his re-election last year. His decision to ram through his deeply unpopular reform without a vote turns an already festering dispute into a political and institutional crisis.

At the height of Thursday’s extraordinary political drama, shortly after the government announced it would force through its contentious pension reform amid a huge fracas in parliament, protesters began to converge on the sprawling Place de la Concorde in central Paris, a mere bridge away from the heavily guarded National Assembly.