PARIS. The French Senate approved Wednesday evening, after a heated battle with the left, the key article of the pension reform bill that raises the statutory retirement age from 62 to 64. The vote passed with 201 yes and 115 no.
According to the government plan, the statutory retirement age will be gradually raised from 62 to 64, at a rate of 3 months a year, from 1 September 2023 to 2030. Furthermore, in order to obtain a “full-rate” pension (without discount), the required contribution period will be increased from the current 42 years (168 quarters) to 43 years (172 quarters) by 2027, at a rate of one quarter per year.
There were several protest demonstrations in various sectors of activity, from transport to refineries via culture, in conjunction with initiatives to fight for women’s rights. On the transport side, there are “perturbations that will last until Friday”, as confirmed by the minister Clement Beaune, with the very limited circulation of SNCF trains and the Ratp metro, with between 40 and 80% of travel canceled. Sud Rail secretary, Julien Troccaz, called on workers to “amplify social anger with a tougher movement, including occupation of offices”. In air travel, flight schedules were reduced by 20% at Roissy and by 30% at Orly, Nice, Bordeaux and other major French airports.
In addition, the operation is underwayyou carry dead», i.e. the blockade of the most important ports in France, such as that of Le Havre – the first on a national scale in terms of number of containers – that of Rouen – the first in Europe for the transit of cereals – Marseille, Lyon, Nantes, Brest and Bayonne. In Alsace, on the other hand, navigation on the Rhine is blocked, with 60 boats at rest, waiting to resume transit. Furthermore, as has already happened in the past, there have been targeted cuts in the supply of electricity, particularly affecting the office of the president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, based in the Yvelines, which was left in the dark from 3 to 7 pm. gesture condemned by some exponents of French politics: on Twitter, the deputy and president of Les Républicains, Eric Ciotti, defined this action as “inadmissible”.