France’s Senate blocks suspension of pension reform
During a public session, senators voted to eliminate Article 45, which would have frozen the legal retirement age at 62 years and 9 months and paused the planned extension of contribution periods. A total of 190 senators supported keeping the reform in place, while 108 voted to maintain the suspension, according to reports.
Centrist Senator Olivier Henno, who backed an amendment scrapping the suspension, said he opposed measures that “fuel a normative and financial drift contrary to the spirit of responsibility which must govern the management of our social accounts.” Independent Senator Emmanuel Capus described the suspension as “certainly the worst political decision of recent decades,” arguing that halting the reform would echo the controversial lowering of the retirement age to 60 in 1981.
The proposed suspension had been introduced by amendment in the National Assembly as a political gesture from Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu toward the Socialist Party, temporarily freezing the legal retirement age and contribution periods until January 1, 2028. President Emmanuel Macron, however, repeatedly insisted that the measure was only a “delay,” not a halt, to his flagship reform.
Under the current plan, the legal retirement age is set to reach 64 for people born in 1968 and later. With the proposed delay, that threshold would shift by one year for those born in 1969.
Contribution requirements of 172 quarters for a full pension would also be postponed from the 1965 generation to the 1966 cohort.
The Senate is scheduled to formally vote on the bill Wednesday afternoon before it moves to a joint committee of senators and lawmakers, expected to meet the same evening. The committee will try to reach a compromise to be submitted to both chambers before December 12. Disagreements—particularly between Socialists and Republicans—make a deal unlikely. If the committee fails, the bill will return to the National Assembly, where left-wing parties may have a better chance of reinstating the suspension in a second reading.
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