"France's National Assembly narrowly approved a social security budget on Tuesday, much to the relief of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who is seeking to finalize the government's 2026 spending plan by the end of the year."
"Lecornu has been scrambling to get a budget through parliament ever since taking office in September, but the concessions he's made on the cost-cutting program advocated by President Emmanuel Macron to appease the center-left Socialists have risked alienating centrist and conservative allies."
"Past proposals to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 reforms first put forward in 2023 which would still leave France among the most generous countries in Europe or the G7 have been put on hold again. The change would be frozen until 2027, after the next presidential elections, which would mean Macron will have failed to fulfil his goal to reform France's creaking pension system in both his terms."
The lower house approved the social security budget by 247 votes to 234, sending the measure back to the Senate before it returns to the lower chamber. The budget includes the suspension of an unpopular pension reform that would have raised the retirement age, with the change frozen until 2027. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu secured passage after making concessions to the center-left Socialists, a strategy that risks alienating centrist and conservative allies. Failure of the bill would have created a roughly 30-billion-euro shortfall for healthcare, pensions and welfare and threatened Lecornu's position. Budget Minister Amelie de Montchalin said, "I cannot say."
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]