Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched across France on Thursday on the eve of a crucial ruling over President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the legal age of retirement to 64, from 62, a step that could pave the way for the measure’s final implementation, even if it does little to dispel persistent popular opposition, reports The New York Times.
Mr. Macron’s pension overhaul became law last month after he decided to push it through the lower house of Parliament without a vote, galvanizing a monthslong showdown with opposition parties and labor unions that on Thursday were staging their 12th day of nationwide protests and strikes since January.
The unrest that followed Mr. Macron’s decision to bypass a full parliamentary vote has mutated into a less chaotic but still very tense standoff, marked by sporadic violence between the police and protesters, even as some of the latest demonstrations showed signs of losing steam.
According to the French authorities, protests on Thursday attracted about 380,000 people, though labor unions said that the number was one million to 1.5 million. Both the authorities and the unions had estimated that turnout at demonstrations last week was higher.
The two sides have refused to back down, and all eyes are now on the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation to ensure it conforms to the French Constitution, to see if it will break the stalemate.
The measures in Mr. Macron’s pension overhaul cannot be officially enacted until the nine-member council gives the green light. That includes the most important and most contentious provision: A raise of the age when workers can start collecting a government pension, if not a full one, to 64, from 62. A ruling is expected on Friday.
Mr. Macron’s government, which has expressed confidence in the law, asked for a constitutional review. So did opposition parties, who are challenging the law on procedural grounds, arguing that the government used improper constitutional tools to speed it through Parliament.
Many legal experts predict that the council will strike down some minor measures, such as one forcing companies to publish information about how many senior workers they employ, but not the entire law, something it has done fewer than 20 times since 1959.
Doing so now would be a stunning blow to Mr. Macron, and a stark departure from the body’s usual caution, experts say.
Samy Benzina, a public law professor at the University of Poitiers, said that the council was “very attached to its legal precedent” and “very attentive to the effects of its decisions.”
“I don’t think it wants to play the role of a political arbiter,” he said.
Either way, the ruling may not end the political turmoil over the plan, which has roiled France and kept Mr. Macron from making much headway on other policies.
Bastien François, a political science professor at the University Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, said that the fierceness of the deadlock between Mr. Macron and his opponents had fueled a misplaced expectation that the council would break it.
“If the Constitutional Council strikes down the law, it will be an extremely strong repudiation of the government,” Mr. François said, ushering in an even bigger crisis for Mr. Macron.
But if the law stands, “it won’t change anything for its opponents — it might even infuriate them even more,” Mr. François added.