The French Constitutional Council supports raising the statutory retirement age to 64

He Constitutional Council Frans, in charge of the interpretation of the Gallic Magna Carta, has authorized the plans of the government of President Emmanuel Macron to raising the statutory retirement age from 62 to 64 years, BFM TV has reported. For example, it supports the main pillars of the constitutional reform promoted by the French government and rejects an opposition initiative to try to force a referendum, according to Franceinfo.

Instead, the Constitutional Council invalidated six articles of the law, in particular two related to the promotion of Hiring employees over the age of 55 at large companies.

The decision sets a “dangerous precedent” as the government could continue to use the legal figure of an amending budget to “enforce major reforms that need to be passed,” said the chairman of the parliamentary group of The non-submissive FranceMathilde Panot.

In an appearance with the other leaders of the parties that make up the left-wing coalition nupes (socialist, environmentalist, communist) Panot has warned that protests against the reform will continue and has issued a new call for President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw the reform. “It will not be the Constitutional Council that changes the minds of the French people,” he reiterated.

The prime minister, Elizabeth Borne, has indicated that in its decision the Constitutional Council considers that the reform is in conformity with the Constitution “both in substance and in procedure”. “The text is reaching the end of its democratic process. Tonight there are neither winners nor losers,” Borne added on Twitter.

The decision of the Constitutional Council has come after a tense day of waiting, with some 230 protest marches invoked by the unions throughout the French state, including a concentration in the town hall square in Paris.

The headquarters of the Constitutional Council has been armored since yesterday, with barriers and riot police, and a ban on organizing concentrations in the area.

Unions pledge to maintain social “combativity”.

French trade unions hoped that the Constitutional Council would reject all or part of Emmanuel Macron’s government’s controversial pension reform, but they have pledged to at least maintain social “belligerence” while the executive assures that its priority is to ” to appease”. “the waters.

“This law is clouded by a series of legal, democratic and social failures,” he stressed Sophie Bintgeneral secretary of the French CGT, in statements to the press of an act of its union in the metropolitan region of Lille.

With regard to the failure of the social dialogue due to the clashes with the government these months, Binet has stated that the trade unions are ready to talk, but always on the basis of a withdrawal from this initiative, which has as its central axis the postponement of the minimum retirement age (from 62 to 64 years).

“Concord is withdrawing this pension reform that has united against the entire population. You can’t run a country against the majority of the population,” he added.

A few hours before the decision of the Constitutional Court was announced, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has called for “staying the course” and “not giving up,” in a brief statement he made during a visit to Notre Dame. “Don’t give up, that’s my motto. Stay the course, that’s my motto,” Macron said during his visit to the Notre Dame factory, right on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the partial destruction of one of the great symbols of Paris and France as a whole. “If you set a goal with ambition, you can change things,” the president said, according to Franceinfo.

The French state and Iparralde experienced the twelfth day of protests and strikes against this reform, which again saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in the major cities. The mobilizations date from January.

The Élysée has called on the trade unions for the next Tuesdayfor a encounter with Macron wanting to celebrate regardless of the decision of the Constitutional Council. There was already a first meeting with the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, which ended without progress.