France\u2019s prime minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu, has suspended Emmanuel Macron\u2019s flagship 2023 pension changes until after the 2027 presidential election in the hope of winning over enough Socialist deputies to survive a no-confidence vote.<\/p>\n
The far-right National Rally (RN) and radical left France Unbowed (LFI) have already filed no-confidence motions for later this week that Lecornu will lose without the support of the Socialist party (PS), which has also warned it could submit its own motion.<\/p>\n
The prime minister, who resigned last Monday but was reappointed by the French president on Friday, faces a struggle to pass an austerity budget for next year through France\u2019s deeply divided parliament, in which no single group has a majority.<\/p>\n
He made the pension announcement \u2013 widely seen as an acknowledgment by Macron that freezing the change, which raised the age of retirement in stages from 62 to 64, was the only way to ensure Lecornu\u2019s survival \u2013 in parliament on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will propose to parliament, starting this autumn, that we suspend the 2023 pension reform until the presidential election,\u201d Lecornu told deputies. \u201cNo increase in the retirement age will take place from now until January 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n
The unpopular plan, forced through parliament without a vote, had been seen as one of Macron\u2019s main economic legacies . The finance minister, Roland Lescure, warned last week that suspending it would \u201ccost billions\u201d by 2027.<\/p>\n
Lecornu said the suspension would cost \u20ac400m (\u00a3348m) in 2026 and \u20ac1.8bn the following year, and would benefit 3.5 million people. \u201cIt will therefore have to be financially compensated, including through cost-saving measures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
France has been mired in its worst political crisis in decades since Macron called snap elections in 2024 that produced a hung parliament divided into three roughly equal blocs: left, far right and the president\u2019s own centrist allies.<\/p>\n
The 39-year-old prime minister has urged his new cabinet to do everything to help the country emerge from deadlock and pass an austerity budget by the end of the year. Macron warned any vote to topple the cabinet would force snap elections.<\/p>\n
Lecornu\u2019s two immediate predecessors, Michel Barnier and Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou, were ousted over plans to cut public spending. Lecornu\u2019s proposed measures include an \u201cexceptional contribution\u201d from major companies and France\u2019s biggest fortunes.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s debt-to-GDP ratio is close to twice the 60% limit fixed by EU rules. The country\u2019s deficit hit 5.8% of GDP last year, also nearly double the official EU target.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, Lecornu met his cabinet to discuss the 2026 budget, which must be approved by year\u2019s end. He said the main objective would be to bring the deficit below 5% of GDP to safeguard the nation\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France\u2019s prime minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu, has suspended Emmanuel Macron\u2019s flagship 2023 pension changes until after the 2027 presidential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-213049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}