Street pressure remains on the last part of Macron’s pension reform

Two days after the final vote on the pension reform, street pressure on the Government Emmanuel Macron it keeps. The strike of garbage collectors Paris is the most visible and unpleasant exponent of trade union mobilizations. More than 7,000 tons of garbage piled up on the sidewalks, after a strike by municipal workers a week ago, and it has already become a real problem due to the breeding of rats.

The mayor of the city Parisa socialist Anne Hidalgo, is the target of criticism from the Government, which accuses it of favoring the rotting of the situation by not reaching out to private companies. “Anne Hidalgo is the one who is on strike,” condemned Clement Beaune, Minister of Transport and one of the contenders for the mayor’s office in the next municipal elections, this Tuesday.

The pension reform is in the final stage of the parliamentary process raises the retirement age from 62 to 64, French unions will mobilize again on Wednesday and Thursday in new protests and strikes.

Today, in parallel with the meeting of the mixed joint commission of the National Assembly and the Senate on Wednesday, a new day of strikes and demonstrations against Macron’s project was announced, the eighth since the beginning of the protests on January 19.

Voting and uncertainty

The committee, composed of seven deputies and six senatorsI will try agree on a joint text. In the event of an agreement, the text would be sent for discussion and voting, expectedly on Thursday, in both chambers. Approval appears assured in the right-wing dominated Senate. But in the National Assembly, where the Government does not have an absolute majority and the conservatives are divided, there is uncertainty. Macron’s executive must convince at least 37 Republican lawmakers to implement the reform.

Given the uncertainty of the results in the National Assembly, the French government may be forced to use the controversial Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of the text without putting it to a vote.