Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday “wish” that the government and the Parliament can “arrange” his disputed pension reform, while affirming that it was necessary to “move forward” on the subject, on the eve of its presentation in the Council of Ministers. After a “social time” of consultation with the unions, “there is now a political time which opens in the Assembly and it must be respected”, underlined the Head of State during a press conference. with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, received in Paris. “And so I would like the government, with the parliamentarians in the National Assembly and then in the Senate, to be able to work on the text and adjust it,” he added.
Asked to say if he intended to maintain at all costs the postponement of the legal age of departure from 62 to 64, despite strong social mobilization against his project, he refused to “answer on this subject”. “I will not replace myself either for the government, which will propose” a “project at 64 on Monday to the Council of Ministers”, nor for the parliamentary debate “which follows”, explained the president. “But we know more or less, and even exactly, what our needs are. They are known,” he insisted.
“There has already been an opening, a change”
He recalled having been elected with a “mandate” to lower the age “to 65 by 2031”, which has already been “arranged” following consultations with the social partners and political parties. “There has already been an opening, a change,” he argued.
“But I believe that here, now, you have to be able to move forward and get involved. And that the government can do its job with Parliament, with serenity, the will to convince and to move the country forward, ”he further pleaded. Emmanuel Macron, while defending the right to strike and demonstrate, also called for there to be “the least possible nuisance for all our compatriots”.