On Monday the government of French President Emmanuel Macron just passed the most important no-confidence motion of the two presented in the House last Friday by the opposition. The vote ended with 278 votes in favour, out of the 287 necessary for the no-confidence vote to pass. The second motion received only 94 votes in favor. As a result, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s government can continue its activities, starting with the highly contested pension reform, approved at the end of last week without going through the vote of parliamentarians, with a procedure based on article 49.3 of the French Constitution.
The motions were presented respectively by LIOT (Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires), a parliamentary group that includes both centre-right and centre-left parties, and by the left-wing alliance NUPES (formed by the Greens, Communists, Socialists and La France Insoumise by Jean-Luc Mélenchon).
The most contested point of President Macron’s proposal is the raising of the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. For weeks in France there have been many demonstrations and strikes, which at the end of last week also led to some clashes with the police.