PARIS: France’s constitutional court on Friday approved the key elements of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, paving the way for him to implement the unpopular changes that have sparked months of protests and strikes.
The nine-member Constitutional Council ruled in favor of key provisions, including raising the retirement age to 64 from 62, judging the legislation to be in accordance with the law.
Six minor proposals were rejected, including efforts to force large companies to publish data on how many people over 55 they employ, and a separate idea to create a special contract for older workers.
The decision represents a victory for Macron, but analysts say it has come at a major personal cost for the 45-year-old while causing months of disruption for the country with sometimes violent protests that have left hundreds injured.
The president’s personal ratings are close to their lowest-ever level, and many voters have been outraged by his decision to defy hostile public opinion and ram the pensions law through the lower house of parliament without a vote.
“Stay the course, that’s my motto,” Macron said on Friday as he inspected restoration efforts at the Notre-Dame cathedral, four years after a devastating fire gutted the Gothic masterpiece.
Police are expecting up to 10,000 people to gather again in Paris on Friday night, with the presence of several hundred leftwing radicals raising fears of more vandalism and clashes that have marred recent rallies.
The Constitutional Council, a short walk from the Louvre museum in the center of the French capital, has been protected with barriers, and dozens of riot police are on guard nearby.
It remains to be seen if the months-long effort to block the changes by trade unions will continue, with labor leaders saying they would respect the court decision on Friday and support among regular workers waning.
“The fight continues and must gather force,” the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, wrote on Twitter.
Far-right National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen added that the fate of the reform was “not sealed” despite Friday’s decision.
Last month, a strike by Paris garbage workers left the capital strewn with 10,000 tons of uncollected rubbish, while train services, oil refineries and schools have been affected by regular stoppages since January.
Some 380,000 people took to the streets nationwide on Thursday in the latest day of union-led action, according to the interior ministry.
But that was a fraction of the nearly 1.3 million who demonstrated at the height of the protests in March.
In a second decision on Friday, the court rejected a bid from opposition lawmakers to force a referendum on an alternative pension law that would have kept the retirement age at 62.
France currently lags behind most of its European neighbors, many of which have hiked the retirement age to 65 or above.
Opponents of the law say it is unfair on unskilled workers who started working early in life, while critics also say it undercuts the right of workers to a long retirement.
The average life expectancy in France is 82.
Senior ruling party MP Eric Woerth spoke for many government supporters on Friday when he said he hoped the country would end up acknowledging the need for the change, but he admitted that “we have not convinced people.”
Polls have consistently shown that two out of three French people are against working another two years.
“Once the volcano has cooled down and people look at things with a bit more distance, maybe in the back of their minds they’ll say, ‘maybe they were right’... the French pension system needed unpopular decisions to conserve it,” he told Europe 1 radio.
Macron has repeatedly called the change “necessary” to avoid annual pension deficits forecast to hit 13.5 billion euros by 2030, according to government figures.
“I’m proud of the French social model, and I defend it, but if we want to make it sustainable we have to produce more,” he said Wednesday during a trip to the Netherlands.
“We have to re-industrialize the country. We have to decrease unemployment and we have to increase the quantity of work being delivered in the country. This pension reform is part of it.”
French court approves core of Macron’s pensions reform
https://arab.news/59vc3
French court approves core of Macron’s pensions reform
- The nine-member Constitutional Council ruled in favour of key provisions, including raising the retirement age to 64 from 62
- Six minor proposals were rejected, including efforts to force large companies to publish data on how many people over 55 they employ
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
