We recently reported that French President Emmanual Macron, during his visit to China, controversially said that other European countries should not be dragged into the China-Ukraine war even if the US pressurizes them to do so because it would be silly on their part and also said that China is overreacting to the situation. This is a statement that was not received well all over the world and France is already in damage control mode due to that. However, we now have a new report from France which is the fact that French President Macron has now signed the new Pension bill into law, which has already triggered protests all over the country as soon as it was introduced.
Basically, the new pension bill states that the state pension age be raised from 62 to 64. It is also worth noting that the bill was forced through the parliament without a vote after France’s Constitutional Council approved the main pension-age increase. The new pension age reform is definitely a progressive change from the French President who says that it is needed to reduce billions of euro deficit every year. The problem with the bill’s introduction and the passing of it in the parliament is that it was forced through with special constitutional powers without a vote.
The reason being that the French Government does not have a majority in the parliament which meant that they were sure the bill would not be passed if it was introduced for a vote. This is why the protests have erupted as it does not follow the ethics of the constitution. Trade Unions in France say that rather than increasing the pension age, the funding can be found by taxing the rich which is an idea that has been floated all around the world.
At the moment, the French President Macron is in hot waters due to his controversy with the China-US-Taiwan statement as well as the passing of this pension reform which will be turned into a law from September 1. France’s Opposition parties have also accused the Government of passing the bill like “thieves in the night”.