New pensions showdown for Macron as reform hits parliament

French President Emmanuel Macron’s government faces a crunch week of defending its contested pension reform, with fireworks expected in parliament and mass strikes and demonstrations planned on the streets.

Walkouts and marches are planned for Tuesday and Saturday, while left-wing opponents of the minority administration have already filed thousands of amendments ahead of the parliamentary debate beginning on Monday afternoon.

Trains and the Paris metro are again expected to see “severe disruptions” according to operators, and around one in five flights at Orly airport south of the capital are expected to be cancelled Tuesday.

Macron’s plan to raise the age of retirement is a flagship policy of his second term in office, which he has defended as “essential” given forecasts for deficits in the coming years.

But it is widely unpopular and last week’s demonstrations brought out 1.3 million people nationwide, according to a police count, while unions claimed more than 2.5 million attendees.

Either way, it marked the largest protest in France since 2010.

“It’s out in the country that this will be settled, either by a revolt or by enduring disgust” with the government, said Francois Ruffin, an MP for hard-left France Unbowed.

“The government is no longer trying to convince people, but just to win, win by resignation and exhaustion” among opponents, he added. Macron’s government have so far stuck to their guns, with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Sunday offering a key concession to win support from the conservative Republicans party.

While the reform will set a new legal minimum retirement age of 64 for most workers -- up from 62 -- Borne said people who started work aged between 20 and 21 will be covered by an exemption allowing them to leave earlier, at 63.

Calling the offer a “patch”, the head of the CFDT union Laurent Berger said that the move “isn’t the response to the huge, geographically and professionally diverse mobilisation” that has swept France.

But Republicans chief Eric Ciotti told the Parisien newspaper that he would back the reform, potentially securing a majority for the government.

Although re-elected to the presidency last year, Macron also lost his parliamentary majority and has been forced either to cobble together compromises or ram through laws using an unpopular constitutional side door.