France’s Constitutional Council on Friday approved a plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The move came despite three months of massive, nationwide protests that drew upwards of 2 million demonstrators pouring into the streets all across France.
In March, President Emmanuel Macron had forced a bill raising the national retirement age without a vote in Parliament.
The protests against the move have disrupted traffic, garbage collection and university campuses across Paris. Following Macron’s action the hard-line CGT Union called on French citizens to walk out of schools, factories, refineries and other work places.
According to French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, the higher retirement age aims to tackle a deficit in France’s pension funds. The reforms are estimated to bring in about €17.7 billion, or $19 billion, annually by 2030. And Macron has asserted that the two-year age hike in France’s pension law is necessary to guarantee the pension system’s survival.
Opponents proposed raising taxes on the wealthy or employers instead.
Borne said Friday’s decision “marks the end of the institutional and democratic path of this reform,” adding that there was “no victor” in what turned into a nationwide standoff and France’s worst social unrest in years.
The Constitutional Council rejected some of the measures in Macron’s pension bill, but the raise in the federal retirement age was central to the plan.
Macron’s office said Friday he would enact the law in the coming days, which the French President wants implemented by the end of the year.
