Macron’s contested pension law faces crunch constitutional test

On Friday, armed police surrounded France’s Constitutional Council ahead of its crucial verdict on whether the government’s plans to raise the retirement age, which have sparked massive protests, are constitutional.

Macron believes the French must work longer or the pension budget will lose billions of euros per year by the end of the decade. However, trade unions insist the money can be found elsewhere, notably by taxing the wealthiest more.

Macron prioritized pension reform in his second term. The president’s financial and reformist reputations are at stake.

Macron’s opponents appealed to the Constitutional Council because the reform was attached onto a social security budget package, limiting parliamentary debate, and rammed through without a vote.

Government insiders and constitutional experts expect the Council to say the government’s actions were constitutional and raise the legal retirement age by two years to 64, possibly with some limitations.

Macron and his government hope this would deter violent trade union-led protests.

“The country must continue to move forward, work, and face the challenges that await us,” Macron said during a state visit to the Netherlands.

Even with Council approval, hardline unions and the opposition vow to fight.

On Thursday, Sophie Binet, the new CGT union chief, warned of more strikes if Macron doesn’t remove this law.

“Damocles’ Sword”
The law raises the legal retirement age by three months each year from September 2019 until 2030.

From 2027, most workers will have to contribute to social security for 43 years instead of 42 to receive a full pension. Macron is accelerating this 2014 reform.

“We still hope that someone in a high place will decide to abandon this law, sit around a table and look at pension funding differently,” 52-year-old postal worker Francis Bourget said at a Paris demonstration on Thursday.

The Constitutional Council will decide on opposition proposals for a citizens’ referendum. Macron’s opponents have a long shot of getting the almost five million signatures they need, but it could still plague the government for months.

It would hang a Damocles sword over us for nine months. “It wouldn’t be easy, but we wouldn’t be paralyzed,” one official source said.

If the Council approves, Macron’s source indicated the pension reform legislation may be passed early next week.

The Council will rule at 1630 GMT.

Constitutional scholars doubt the reform will be overturned. Some efforts to increase older worker employment may be ruled down because they don’t belong in a social security budget bill.

Political commentators fear the government’s reform’s broad discontent could bolster the far right.

“I’m not that optimistic about the Constitutional Council’s decision,” far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who opposes the pension law, said earlier this week. What should I do? Burn cars? “Vote National Rally,” we’ll tell the French.