France

The French government is likely to face no-confidence motions, while unions have called more strikes in protest of the measure, which will raise the ...

What’s more, the concession the government made in an unsuccessful effort to appease the opposition have reduced the very savings the reform was meant to make. The president has paid a high price for the reform. On Thursday, Éric Ciotti, the president of LR, said: “We will not vote in favor of any motion of censure.” The declaration seems to nip in the bud any chance of a motion succeeding. He has been accused of being disconnected from the reality of the people. [Most of the country has turned against him](https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-01-24/france-pension-reform-poses-macron-with-his-biggest-challenge-yet.html). a divided government where the president and the parliament are from opposing parties. For it to be successful, they would need 32 of the 61 lawmakers in the center-right Les Républicains (LR) to support the measure, as well as 20 votes from LIOT. But the fact that the bill was adopted by decree has turned the anger to outrage. The biggest challenge now facing the French government is a possible no-confidence motion. On Thursday, French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced that the government was resorting to Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force the bill through parliament without a vote. He could choose a figure from the right — Borne is a social democrat — and this would allow him to build a stable alliance with Les Républicains. The news prompted thousands of people to take to the streets of Paris in protest.

French President Emmanuel Macron ordered his prime minister to wield a special constitutional power Thursday that skirts parliament to force through a ...

Members of Melenchon's France Unbowed party were foremost among the lawmakers singing the Marseillese in an attempt to thwart the prime minister. The reform also would require 43 years of work to earn a full pension. "The mobilization will continue," Roussel said. Lawmakers can try to revoke the changes through no-confidence motions, she said. "This retirement reform is brutal, unjust, unjustified for the world of workers," they declared. The fury of opposition lawmakers echoed the anger of citizens and workers' unions.

After a tumultuous 24 hours in the French parliament and on the streets, John Lichfield looks at what happens next for Emmanuel Macron, for his embattled ...

It is reasonable and respectable to question the need for this reform and the need for it to happen now. It is not reasonable or respectable to describe it as “brutal” and “violent” as the unions and opposition have done. Elisabeth Borne will survive the censure motion but she will be replaced by Macron within a month or so. The perennial losses of the supposedly self-financing pension system are a serious burden on French state finances. It was that bleak news, in a phone call to Borne from LR leaders, that persuaded Macron to impose the law by means of Article 49.3. Beyond that, there has been a “hystericizing” of all politics in France since the old left-right system fell apart (something Macron himself encouraged and benefited from). Elisabeth Borne has presented a complicated plan in a muddled and unconvincing way. When it came to the final muster, the LR leadership – which had supported and largely shaped the legislation – could guarantee only 28. The Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and her government would then also be forced to resign. Why such a fuss, you might ask, about the fact that Macron has used a constitutional weapon thoughtfully provided by President Charles de Gaulle 65 years ago? It remains to be seen what happens on the following nights. They were mostly the young, black clad, self-pleased urban, middle-class, anti-system revolutionaries who attach themselves to all street protests in France.

Protests continue in France against pensions reforms brought by President Emmanuel Macron. The protestors set fire to garbage containers in the streets and ...

Garbage is set on fire by protesters after a demonstration near Concorde square, in Paris. In the reforms, the age of pension is being raised to 64 among other measures. The protestors set fire to garbage containers in the streets and clashed with the police.

French President Emmanuel Macron will trigger special constitutional powers to enact the proposed pension reform bill, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced ...

Various options are on the table, but all include raising the retirement age,” government spokesman Olivier Veran told journalists in January, according to Reuters. The session was stopped early for Borne’s announcement. Mass strikes have hit transport and education.

Protesters blocked a key highway around the French capital and escalated strikes at refineries Friday in a new show of anger after President Emmanuel Macron ...

[É](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/élisabeth-borne/) [lisabeth Borne](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/élisabeth-borne/) announced the triggering of Article 49.3 on Thursday afternoon, thousands of protesters gathered on Place de la Concorde, across the River Seine from parliament. [Paris](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/paris/). [Marseille](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/marseille/) while clashes between demonstrators and security forces also erupted in the western cities of Nantes and Rennes as well as [Lyon](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/lyon/) in the southeast, according to AFP correspondents. Invoking Article 49.3 also permits the opposition to respond with a no-confidence motion. It needs to be repealed." [Gerald Darmanin](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/gérald-darmanin/) told RTL radio. [union](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/unions/) member from supermarket chain Monoprix, said she was incensed and would continue to protest until the [bill](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/pension-reform/) was revoked. [Macron](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/emmanuel-macron/)'s move sparked [protests](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/protest/) across the country on Thursday night, with hundreds arrested nationwide, according to the interior minister. [TotalEnergies](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/totalenergies/) de Normandie, but halting production would escalate the industrial action. In several other French cities, including Marseille, there were also spontaneous protests against the reform. [Emmanuel Macron](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/emmanuel-macron/) pushed through the contentious pension reform by invoking Article 49.3 of the constitution. [NUPES (New Ecological and Social Popular Union)](https://www.france24.com/en/tag/the-new-ecological-and-social-popular-union-nupes/) alliance.

Opposition parties were expected to start procedures later Friday for a no-confidence vote on the government led by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Macron decided to invoke the special power during a Cabinet meeting a few minutes before a scheduled vote in the National Assembly, where the legislation had no guarantee of securing majority support. Left-wing and far-right lawmakers are determined to vote in favor. While some party lawmakers might stray from that position, they are expected to be a minority. Opposition lawmakers demanded the government to step down. As night fell, police officers charged the demonstrators in waves to clear the Place. Thousands gathered in protest Thursday at the Place de la Concorde, which faces the National Assembly building.

PARIS (AP) — Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to force a bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 through parliament ...

Macron decided to invoke the special power during a Cabinet meeting a few minutes before a scheduled vote in the National Assembly, where the legislation had no guarantee of securing majority support. Left-wing and far-right lawmakers are determined to vote in favor. Opposition lawmakers demanded the government to step down. As night fell, police officers charged the demonstrators in waves to clear the Place. Leaders of the influential CGT union called on people to leave schools, factories, refineries and other work places. Union leaders were not the only ones angry about Macron’s plan to make French citizens work for two more years before becoming eligible to collect full pensions.

Strikes escalate and MPs call for protection as interior minister warns protesters against wreaking havoc.

The government took the decision after it feared it could not secure a majority of MPs to vote in favour. Opposition parties will call a vote of no-confidence in the government on Monday. The party has said it will not do so, and the government has so far survived all attempted no-confidence votes in recent months. “The opposition is legitimate, the protests are legitimate, but wreaking havoc is not,” Darmanin said. Workers had already been on a rolling strike at the northern site TotalEnergies de Normandie, but halting production would escalate the industrial action and spark fears of fuel shortages. A further day of coordinated strike action by transport workers and teachers will take place next Thursday.

French opposition parties were expected to start procedures later Friday for a no-confidence vote on the government led by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Getting a no-confidence motion to pass will be challenging – none have succeeded since 1962, and Macron’s centrist alliance still has the most seats in the National Assembly. Trade unions organizing the opposition urged demonstrators to remain peaceful during more strikes and marches in the days ahead. “We are not going to stop,” CGT union representative Regis Vieceli told the Associated Press on Friday. Some university campuses in Paris were blocked and protesters occupied a high-traffic ring road around the French capital. Riot police charged and threw tear gas to empty the huge square across from the National Assembly after troublemakers climbed scaffolding on a renovation site, arming themselves with wood. If the no-confidence votes fail, the bill becomes law.

PARIS (AP) — Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to force a bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 through parliament ...

Getting a no-confidence motion to pass will be challenging — none have succeeded since 1962, and Macron’s centrist alliance still has the most seats in the National Assembly. France, like many richer nations, faces lower birth rates and longer life expectancy. “We are not going to stop,” CGT union representative Regis Vieceli told The Associated Press on Friday. If the no-confidence votes fail, the bill becomes law. Trade unions organizing the opposition urged demonstrators to remain peaceful during more strikes and marches in the days ahead. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told radio station RTL that 310 people were arrested overnight, most of them in Paris.

Yesterday, for the eleventh time in 10 months, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne invoked article 49.3 of the French Constitution, to force through Macron's ...

Secondly, in the aftermath of article 49.3, a number of leaders of the left and the trade union movement are increasingly insisting on the prospect of fighting the pension reform by means of a "shared initiative referendum" – or even an appeal to the Constitutional Council! Before and after the use of article 49.3, the strategy of "days of action" cannot make the government back down. The working class has immense power and the French working class has shown, once and again, its willingness to fight. It is true that, under the pressure of the mass movement against the pension reform, and given the deep internal crisis in the Republicans, one cannot totally exclude an ‘accident’ that results in the adoption of a motion of no confidence. So far, the rolling strike movement has not gained the momentum needed to push the government back. Instead of calling for a properly organised escalation of the strike movement, towards an all-out general strike, the Intersyndicale unions met and agreed … On Friday 17 March, the workers at the Total Normandie refinery, the largest in the country, voted to shut down the plant. If one of them wins a majority, Macron will probably not simply be able to reshuffle his government: he will have to dissolve the National Assembly. The National Rally’s deputies [formally National Front, led by Marine Le Pen] are presenting themselves as the fanatical supporters of the motion of no confidence, but in reality they have every interest in letting the situation continue to rot in order to reap the maximum benefits when the time comes. The mainstream media and the parliamentary opposition are stressing that this is a major "failure" for Macron, who would have preferred a formal vote in the National Assembly on his pension reform. In the hours following the Prime Minister's announcement, thousands of people gathered at the Place de la Concorde in Paris to denounce the manoeuvre. Early next week, motions of no confidence will be put to a vote in the National Assembly.

Angry protesters took over the streets in Paris on Friday, trying to pressure lawmakers to bring down French President Emmanuel Macron's government and doom ...

Getting a no-confidence motion to pass will be challenging — none have succeeded since 1962, and Macron’s centrist alliance still has the most seats in the National Assembly. “We are not going to stop,” CGT union representative Regis Vieceli told The Associated Press on Friday. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told radio station RTL on Friday that 310 people were arrested overnight, most of them in Paris, where police used a water cannon to clear thousands from the Place de Concorde.

At least 300 people have been detained across France as police in Paris and elsewhere clashed with protesters after the French government decided to ...

As the prime minister tried to make the announcement, several parliamentarians began singing the national anthem. However, the anger has now spread from the seats of parliament to the streets and industries. Police fired water cannons and tear gas overnight as thousands took their anger to the streets of Paris after the French government raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.