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
A Paris court finds 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron
PARIS: A Paris court found Monday 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron by spreading false online claims about her gender and sexuality, including allegations she was born a man.
The court convicted all defendants to sentences ranging from a cyberbullying awareness training to 8-month suspended prison sentences.
The court pointed to “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious” comments referring to false claims regarding alleged trans identity and alleged pedo criminality targeting Brigitte Macron.
The defendants, eight men and two women aged 41 to 65, are accused of having posted “numerous malicious comments” falsely claiming that President Emmanuel Macron ‘s wife was born a man and linking their 24-year age gap to pedophilia. Some of the posts were viewed tens of thousands of times.
Brigitte Macron did not attend the two-day trial in October. Speaking on TF1 national television Sunday, she said she launched legal proceedings to “set an example” in the fight against harassment.
Her daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, testified about what she described as the “deterioration” of her mother’s life since the online harassment intensified. “She cannot ignore the horrible things said about her,” Auzière told the court. She said the impact has extended to the entire family, including Macron’s grandchildren.
Defendant Delphine Jegousse, 51, who is known as Amandine Roy and describes herself as a medium and an author, is considered to have played a major role in spreading the rumor after she released a four-hour video on her YouTube channel in 2021. She was given a 6-month prison sentence.
The X account of Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, known as Zoé Sagan on social media, was suspended in 2024 after his name was cited in several judicial investigations. Poirson-Atlan was given an 8-month prison sentence.
Other defendants include an elected official, a teacher and a computer scientist. Several told the court their comments were intended as humor or satire and said they did not understand why they were being prosecuted.
The case follows years of conspiracy theories falsely alleging that Brigitte Macron was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, which is actually the name of her brother. The Macrons have also filed a defamation suit in the United States against conservative influencer Candace Owens.
The Macrons, who have been married since 2007, first met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. Brigitte Macron, 24 years her husband’s senior, was then called Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three.
Emmanuel Macron, 48, has been France’s president since 2017.
