Paris (EFE).- The Constitutional Council validated this Friday the delay of the minimum retirement age in France from 62 to 64 years, the main measure of the pension reform approved by the Government.
In addition, the body rejected the request that the pension reform be submitted to a referendum, as announced in a statement.
Instead, the Constitutional Council invalidated six articles of the law, especially two related to promoting the hiring of workers over 55 years of age in large companies.
The decision sets a “dangerous precedent” because the government could continue to use the legal figure of an amending budget to “enforce important reforms to be approved,” said the president of the La Francia Insumisa parliamentary group, Mathilde Panot.
Retirement age protests in France
In an appearance with the other leaders of the parties that make up the leftist Nupes coalition (socialist, environmentalist, communist), Panot warned that the protests against the reform will continue and launched a new appeal to President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw the reform.
“It will not be the Constitutional Council that will change the opinion of the French people,” he reiterated.
The Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, pointed out that, in its decision, the Constitutional Council considers that “both in substance and in procedure”, the reform is in accordance with the Constitution.
“The text reaches the end of its democratic process. Tonight there are neither winners nor losers,” Borne added on Twitter.
The decision of the Constitutional Council came after a tense day of waiting, with some 230 protest marches called by the unions throughout the country, including a concentration in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento in Paris.
The very headquarters of the Constitutional Council was armored since yesterday, with barriers and riot police, and the prohibition to organize concentrations in its vicinity.