After the National Assembly, pension reform will now be debated in the French Senate.
There were several days of heated debates in Parliament, in which MPs presented 20 amendments, mostly from the opposition, to block the Government's plans.
RFI - Early in the evening, it was still uncertain whether Article 7 would be voted on. This text alters the legal minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, a measure championed by the centrist government but strongly opposed by French society.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne's own government presented an amendment on Friday altering the pension calculation for women who had children before 2012. The likelihood of women being disadvantaged by the article is just one of the points still without consensus.
There is "little chance of us finishing the text" this Friday, he lamented in an interview with... Franceinfo Franck Riester, Minister for Relations with Parliament, added, "We don't even know if we'll be able to get to Article 7," which provides for postponing the legal retirement age to 64.
At midnight, regardless of the outcome of the debates in the Assembly, the proceedings will be suspended and the bill will go to the Senate. With three hours remaining until the deadline, there were still hundreds of amendments to be considered.
Franck Riester accuses the left of "blocking democratic debate." In the final hours before the deadline, approximately 1,5 amendments still needed to be discussed before Article 7. Most of the amendments were submitted by deputies from the France Unbowed (LFI) party, as the other formations of the left-wing Nupes front had withdrawn theirs.
On Thursday (16), the leader of the LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, considered the withdrawal of the left-wing amendments "incomprehensible" and asked the deputies not to "rush". "Anxious to be defeated?", he asked, acknowledging the possibility of the government winning the vote.
French unions organized a fifth day of national mobilization on Thursday. The demonstrations gathered 1,3 million people, according to the CGT, and 440 according to the Ministry of the Interior. This is the lowest number since the beginning of the mobilization. The next date is already set: on March 7, the unions threaten to "paralyze" the country if the government does not withdraw the reform. The movement begins the day before (6) in the refineries.
March 7th marks the beginning of debates in the Senate regarding the government's proposal.