PARIS — Emmanuel Macron enacted his controversial pension reform on Saturday after clearing a constitutional hurdle, allowing the French president to try to move past the episode that’s sparked months of protests and dented his popularity.
The move was made possible after France’s Constitutional Council, made up chiefly of former politicians and senior civil servants, approved the core elements of the bill on Friday. The legislation, which will increase the minimum retirement age by two years to 64, will take effect in September.
While the green light from the court is a source of relief for Macron, he still faces deep opposition to the pension reform. Labor unions have remained unusually united through the protests, with opinion polls showing a majority of French people oppose raising the retirement age and support the strikes that started in January.
Even before the ruling, Macron tried to show he’s ready to move on to other issues. He invited unions, “without preconditions,” to meet at the Elysee on Tuesday for discussions. However, in a statement on Friday evening, leaders of the major labor movements said they wouldn’t accept any meetings before May 1, which is Labor Day in most of Europe and when they have planned their next major protest.
“This evening there is neither a winner nor a loser,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tweeted after the ruling, adding that the pension plan had “reached the end of its democratic process.”
In the early hours on Saturday, the law was enacted by being written into France’s Official Journal. Macron has previously said he intends for it to be applied in September, a timeline confirmed by Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt Friday evening.
“Emmanuel Macron and his gang have promulgated their retirement law like thieves in the night,” leftist lawmaker Francois Ruffin said Saturday on Twitter. “What they’ve just done is a democratic hold-up.”
Speaking on France Info radio Saturday, Stanislas Guerini, minister for civil service, said it’s normal procedure for the government to enact laws within 48 hours of constitutional approval. “We want this law to apply because it is useful and necessary for the country,” he said.
Macron will speak on French television Monday evening, according to Agence France Presse.
His government says raising the pension age is vital to boost employment rates and halt the build-up of deficits in the massive public retirement system as the population ages. Unions say changing the age thresholds to claim a full pension will disproportionately penalize the least well-off, and that there are other options to balance the system, including higher taxes on business and the wealthy.
“One can’t govern a country against its citizens,” said Sophie Binet, head of France’s far-left CGT union, who spoke at a protest in front of Paris’ city hall after the ruling. “We are calling on the president to get away from his stubborn, obstinate dogmatism.”
Opposition lawmakers who requested a Constitutional Council review of the law argued the government had used an inappropriate vehicle for the reform, as well as tools that hastened the process and made debates unclear and insincere. Unions and protesters were particularly angered by Macron’s use of a provision to bypass a vote on the bill when it became clear he lacked a majority in the National Assembly.
In its decision, the court also rejected one of two opposition-backed demands for a process that could lead to a referendum on keeping the pension age cutoff at 62 — a move that would have prolonged political and legal uncertainty. It will issue a ruling on the second request on May 3.
Some peripheral provisions of the retirement law were struck down, but that’s unlikely to force a wholesale revision.
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(With assistance from Gaspard Sebag and Tara Patel.)
