France's highest constitutional authority will rule on President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform on April 14, it said Wednesday, a verdict decisive for the future of the changes.
The reforms were passed by parliament on March 16 after the government used a mechanism to bypass a vote by MPs, inflaming nationwide protests.
They were considered adopted by parliament when the government survived two no confidence motions on March 20.
But the reforms can only come into law once they are validated by the Constitutional Council, which has the power to strike out some or even all of the legislation if deemed out of step with the constitution.
The council's members — known as "les sages" ("the wise ones") — will give two decisions when the ruling is made public on the legislation, whose headline measure raises the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The first will be on whether the legislation is in line with the French constitution.
Referendum
And the second will be on whether a demand launched by the left for a referendum on the changes is admissible.
In line with government practice for contentious new laws, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne asked the council to rule on the changes on March 21.
But left wingers in the lower house National Assembly and upper house Senate also asked the council for a ruling, as did far-right MPs in the lower house.
If a referendum was ruled admissible, backers would need to get the signatures of a tenth of the electorate — almost five million people — for it to be called.
The president of the council is Socialist Party grandee Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister who also served as finance minister and foreign minister in his long career.
Its verdict will be a critical juncture in Macron's battle to impose the legislation, which has seen 10 days of major strikes and protests since January, most recently on Tuesday.
New clashes between police and protesters erupted in a movement that has been marked by increasing violence since the government used the constitution's Article 49.3 to bypass a parliamentary vote and pass the legislation.
Unions have announced a new day of strikes and protests on April 6, just over a week before the council's decision is announced.
"The absence of a response from the executive has led to a situation of tensions in the country which seriously worries us," the unions said Tuesday.
