As France descends into deep turmoil over French President Emmanuel Macron’s decree to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a vote in parliament, French leader of the opposition National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, is promising a just pension reform if elected president.
She says that her version of pension reform will offer an equitable pension, unlike the one envisaged by Macron, which will bring justice to workers.
“I would now remind the French that in order to obtain a reform of pensions in the other direction, we must vote the next time around. Because, as far as I’m concerned, when I say he (Macron) has taken the Republic hostage, I want to implement my pension reform that will allow the French to retire at 60 after 40 to 42 years of work if they started before age 20, and at the age of 62 at a maximum. Now, that would be a just pension reform,” said Le Pen during an interview with LCP.
Macron used Article 49.3 of the constitution to bypass parliament and ram through his pension reform, which is rejected by over 70 percent of the French public. The French president reportedly decided on the authoritarian move after learning he likely did not have enough votes to pass his bill. Macron, who faced a no-confidence vote yesterday, won by only nine votes, putting his government in a precarious position.
Scenes of violence have followed on the streets of France, as police beat protesters and deployed tear gas. Protests have also been banned across Paris in a sign of France’s backsliding into authoritarian rule.
Every single member of Le Pen’s party voted to remove Macron from power, and political analysts say Le Pen is in the best position of her political career due to her adamant opposition to Macron’s pension reform.
Answering a question from reporters, Le Pen said she will bring a motion to censure the current government.
“Of course… We must censure this government. We will not only submit a censure motion, but we will also vote on all of the censure motions that will be submitted, and there will be relatively many,” Le Pen said.