National Retirement Age in France Raised to 64 as Bill Passes

The retirement age in France will be raised to 64. The bill to increase the national retirement age from 62 now becomes law, but opponents vowed to continue their fight amid widespread fury against President Emmanuel Macron and protests are still ongoing.

After much tumult Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote when the French National Assembly rejected it, ensuring that a fiercely contested bill now becomes the law of the land.

The motion received 278 votes, nine short of the 287 needed to pass. The close result reflected widespread anger at the overhaul to the pension law, at Mr. Macron for his apparent aloofness and at the way the measure was rammed through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself. France’s upper house of Parliament, the Senate, passed the pension bill this month.

Lawmakers opposed to President Emmanuel Macron and his retirement overhaul are exploring legal avenues for thwarting his plans, but it is very uncertain that any would work.

Others have vowed to challenge the new pension law before the Constitutional Council, a body that reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution — mainly on the grounds that the government put the pension overhaul into a social security budget bill and that some retirement changes are not directly budget related.

But it is unclear how the council would ultimately rule, or which parts of the law it might strike down. So far, the government has expressed confidence that the core of the law would stand.

Other lawmakers and union leaders say only renewed strikes and demonstrations will convince Mr. Macron not to implement his pension overhaul.

“Since the process of parliamentary censorship has not worked, it is time to move on to popular censorship,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist leader and founder of the France Unbowed party.

But it is unclear if Mr. Macron will buckle to continued pressure from the street. He has already withstood the pressures of national strikes and protests.