French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday delayed the announcement of his divisive pension reform plans from this week to January, as his government seeks to win over unions and drum up more political support.
Macron has made it clear he wants to raise the retirement age, a proposal that has already met fierce resistance from unions and, according to polls, is deeply unpopular with the public.
The president said the delay would give everyone involved more time to discuss “key elements” of the reforms.
“Several political parties went through leadership votes in the last few days and have changed their leaders,” Macron said in opening remarks at an event.
“It seemed appropriate to postpone the announcement by a few days or a few weeks and therefore rather than doing it on December 15 we’ll do it on January 10,” he added.
Reforming France’s costly and complicated pension system was a key plank of Macron’s election platform when he came to power in 2017.
But his initial proposals provoked weeks of protests and transport strikes just before the COVID pandemic hit. Macron put the initiative on hold as he ordered France into lockdown in early 2020.
He is now trying to press on with a less ambitious set of proposals, with voters angry over the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, and without an outright majority in parliament.
France’s Les Republicans, who could be a crucial partner in the reforms, elected Eric Ciotti, a staunch law-and-order conservative, as their new leader on Sunday.
Some unions also held annual leadership elections this month.
A spokeswoman of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who is leading consultation talks with unions and political parties, said Borne and Macron took the decision to postpone the reform over the weekend.
The move will not affect the overall timeline of their form which is still planned to come into force by the summer, with the first parliamentary debates in the first quarter of 2023, the spokeswoman added
