The opposition to French President Emmanuel Macron’s pensions reform, which was adopted on Saturday, is vowing to take to the streets until the legislation is permanently shelved.
The left-wing NUPES coalition – which brings together the far-left, socialists, communists and the greens – vowed to keep taking to the streets until the bill “as a whole” is removed, according to several interviews by MPs on Sunday. They are due to file a new no-confidence vote in the next few days.
The French Constitutional Court backed Macron’s pensions reform, including raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, in a much-awaited ruling published on Friday that marked the end of the reform’s legislative process. Hours later, the bill was enshrined into law by Macron himself.
This has fueled anger across both sides of the aisle, who claim in a rare show of unity that, albeit legal, the bill does not benefit from any political legitimacy, so it ought not to be implemented.
“Nothing about how the law was adopted was democratic,” far-left MP Manuel Bompard, a close Mélenchon ally, told Journal du Dimanche on Sunday. He claims that the government abused Constitutional tools to speed up debates and hide information about the bill’s true impacts – a critique the Court found unsubstantiated.
Socialist Party’s top man Olivier Faure further accused Macron of stirring frustration and anger nationwide. Signing the bill into law within hours of the ruling’s publication speaks of Macron’s “nervousness”, Faure told France Inter.
As for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has seen support increase considerably ever since the reform was first introduced, the responsibility for the social “crisis” is shared between Macron and left-wing parties, who refused to have any meaningful parliamentary debates, she said.
She calls for a referendum over the bill or the dissolution of the National Assembly, else, “the president must resign”, she told LCI.
The government is looking for a way out of this crisis. It is considering opening a wider national debate over working conditions and the future of work to reach full employment in the next few years.
Macron is due to speak on Monday “in a spirit of appeasement”. His invitation to receive trade unions at the Elysée Palace was unanimously rejected. A new round of protests should take place on 1 May.
(Theo Bourgery-Gonse | EURACTIV.fr)
Source: euractiv.com
