Anger smoulders over pension reforms
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will give a televised interview today, his office said yesterday, after his government fended off two noconfidence votes in parliament after a controversial pensions overhaul that has sparked mass protests.
Mr Macron’s government used a constitutional measure to adopt the reform, which pushes back the retirement age to 64 from 62, without a vote in the lower-house National Assembly, sparking claims of a “denial of democracy” by angry demonstrators.
His office said he will go live to answer questions by journalists from broadcasters TF1 and France 2 at 1pm today, having largely remained silent on the pension changes in the weeks leading up to the stormy parliament session where it was pushed through last week.
On Monday, the government survived two no-confidence motions lodged by opposition groups, with one failing by just nine votes in the 577-seat National Assembly.
The official adoption of the reform yesterday appeared unlikely to defuse the biggest domestic crisis since Mr Macron’s re-election last year, with daily protests in cities around the country that have on occasion turned violent.
More than 100 people were arrested in Paris alone on Monday night in tense standoffs between protesters and security forces, police said.
Similar scenes were reported in other French cities, including Dijon and Strasbourg — where protesters smashed the windows of a department store, AFP correspondents said.
Mr Macron was set to meet with his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne yesterday, as well as the president of the Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet of his centrist Renaissance party, and the right-wing president of the Senate, Gerard Larcher.
He was scheduled to meet with Renaissance lawmakers in the evening, his office said, as opponents said the protests would continue.
“Nothing will weaken the determination of the workers,” the hard-line CGT union said. A new round of strikes and protests has been called for tomorrow and are expected to again bring public transport to a standstill in several areas.
There has also been a rolling strike by rubbish collectors in Paris and some other cities, leading to unsightly and unhygienic piles of trash accumulating in the French capital.
The government also said yesterday that it would requisition workers at a fuel depot in Fos-sur-Mer near the southern city of Marseille, as petrol stations across the country start to go dry during a strike by refinery workers.
The far-right camp meanwhile is appealing the Constitutional Council.