The French Senate approved President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform plan on Saturday, with 195 votes in favour and 112 votes against, a bill whose major element is a two-year increase in the retirement age to 64.
During a seventh day of countrywide protests against the idea, the French Parliament’s upper house voted on the document. According to polls, a majority of voters oppose the wording.
Now that the bill has been approved by the Senate, it will be evaluated by a joint committee of lower and upper house MPs, most likely on Wednesday.
If the committee agrees on a text, a final vote in both chambers is expected on Thursday, but the outcome in the lower chamber, the National Assembly, where Macron’s party needs allies’ votes for a majority, remains doubtful.
If the government is concerned that it will not have enough votes in the lower house, it can nonetheless pass the text without a parliamentary vote via the so-called 49:3 method.
Wednesday was set to be another day of widespread strikes and protests.
