Information coming in is that France’s top constitutional body has approved President Emmanuel Macron’s contested plan to raise the retirement age.
The decision taken on Friday is in line with the French Constitution. The retirement age in France is 64 years. Macron can enact the bill within 15 days.
All eyes were on the heavily guarded Constitutional Council, which can nix all or parts of a complex pension reform plan that Macron pushed through without a vote by the lower house of parliament.
Security forces stood behind a metal fence erected in front of the edifice where the decision was being made.
As tensions mounted hours before the decision, Macron invited labor unions to meet with him on Tuesday “whatever the decision by the Constitutional Council,” his office said.
The president did not grant a request last month by unions for a meeting.
The president’s drive to increase the retirement age has provoked months of labor strikes and protests.
Violence by pockets of ultra-left radicals marked the 12 otherwise peaceful nationwide marches that unions organized since January.