ISLAMABAD/PARIS: In a major breakthrough, the French Senate on Saturday adopted President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform proposal with 195 votes in favour and 112 votes against.
The proposed bill seeks to raise the retirement age from the current 62 to 64.
The upper house of the French Parliament voted on the bill in the wake of a seventh day of a nationwide protest against the proposal.
Senate adopts proposed bill
Now that the Senate has adopted the proposed bill, it will be reviewed by a joint committee of lower and upper houses probably by Wednesday.
If the committee approves the text, a final vote in both chambers was likely to take place on Thursday, but the outcome of that still seemed uncertain in the National Assembly, where Macron’s party needed allies’ votes for a majority.
If the government thinks it won’t have enough votes in the lower house, it was still possible for it to push the bill through without a parliamentary vote, via a so-called 49:3 procedure. More country-wide strikes and protests have been planned for Wednesday.
