Macron’s government survives no-confidence vote on pension reform

• 101 people were arrested during standoffs with police.
• The vote, proposed by moderate MPs, received 278 votes in favor, falling short of the 287 required.
• The votes were held after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne utilized a special constitutional power.

The French administration narrowly avoided a vote of no-confidence after forcing an increase in the pension age to 64. It spurred further anti-government demonstrations in Paris, where 101 people were arrested during standoffs with police.

The vote, proposed by moderate MPs, received 278 votes in favor, falling short of the 287 required.

If it had succeeded, President Emmanuel Macron would have been forced to form a new administration or call new elections.

A second no-confidence resolution, brought forth by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, was also defeated.

Now that both votes have been defeated, the contentious bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 will become law.

The votes were held after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne utilized a special constitutional power known as Article 49:3 last week to pass the measure without a vote.

It provoked heated protests over the weekend, with some demonstrators battling with police and blocking streets in central Paris and other cities throughout the country with rubbish fires.

Following Monday’s botched elections, there were further protests in the capital, with a tense standoff between protestors and anti-riot police.

The first motion, which received support from numerous left-wing groups, including the Green Party and the Socialist Party, was the only one that stood a chance of passing.

When that vote failed, members of the left-wing contingent who voted for it chanted “continue” and “we’ll meet in the streets” and demanded that the prime minister quit.

“Nothing is solved, we’ll continue to do all we can so this reform is pulled back,” hard-left La France Insoumise parliamentary group chief Mathilde Panot said.

One university student called Shola who turned out to protest in Paris told sources: “People think this subject does not concern us but in fact it does. If our grandparents will now have to work longer, we know that things will get worse.”

Fellow student Marie said they were protesting “because we have been abandoned, because we have been ignored, because it is a government that doesn’t care about us, it mocks us”.

Members of the opposition booed and jeered Ms. Borne when she entered the podium for a heated argument before the ballots.

The prime minister stated that the administration had “never gone thus far” to reach a compromise in order to approve the legislation.

Boris Vallaud from the Socialist Party, who backed the centrist no-confidence motion, called on the administration to “withdraw” the pension reform or “subject it to the referendum of the French people”.

Mr. Macron has claimed that France‘s current pension system is unsustainable due to the country’s aging population. Yet, this is not a sentiment shared by everyone in parliament.

The author of the first no-confidence votes, Charles de Courson, said removing the government was “the only way of stopping the social and political crisis in this country”.

However, the leader of France’s conservative Republican party, Éric Ciotti, said last week they would not support the no-confidence motions.

Mr. Ciotti said the decision to invoke the clause was “a result of many years of political failures” that demonstrated “a profound crisis in our constitution”, but he did not believe the vote of no-confidence was the solution.

Also Read

Macron faces no-confidence votes in the wake of hated pension reforms

President Emmanuel Macron planned to impose unpopular pension reforms. The reforms provoked...