The French government forced through its pension reforms by decree in a move designed to undercut opposition parties’ efforts to plague parliamentary debates with more than 40,000 amendments to the bill.

The pension overhaul, which aims to unify the country’s 42 different profession-specific retirement schemes, sparked the longest public transport strike in France’s history before making it to parliament. On Saturday evening, Edouard Philippe, prime minister, caught his parliamentary majority off guard by announcing he would trigger the 49.3 article in the constitution allowing the government to override parliament to adopt the legislation.

Mr Philippe did so “not to put an end to debate but to end this period of non-debate”, he told lawmakers.

The government’s decision to use the provision underlines the toxic political environment facing Emmanuel Macron, whose approval ratings have slid to about 33 per cent. The reform has become the biggest challenge to his presidency since the gilets jaunes street protests that kicked off in late 2018.

Even though the French leader would have had no problem passing the pension bill thanks to his large majority in the lower house of parliament, the lengthy and tense discussions were threatening to overshadow mayoral elections later this month, in which Mr Macron’s party is expected to suffer a nationwide defeat.

“This was the only way for the government to speed up the process considering the strategy of the opposition to pose 30,000-40,000 amendments to block the legislation,” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice. “The opposition pushed the government to this route. The France Insoumise knew the government would probably do this and now they can say the government is not respectful of democracy.”

Philippe Martinez, head of the leftwing CGT trade union, told French news service AFP that the unions would take to the streets once again next week against the reforms. The leader of the far-left political party, La France Insoumise — France Unbowed — decried the “extraordinarily violent” methods of the government while Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, or National Gathering, said: “The French will not forgive this outrageous manoeuvre.”

The use of 49.3 clause was last deployed by Socialist president François Hollande to push through labour reforms in 2016 and before that a slate of business-friendly reforms put together by Mr Macron as his economy minister in 2015. Mr Hollande took the call due to his government’s small parliamentary majority which put the law’s passage in jeopardy.

Opposition parties have now called for a no-confidence vote against the government, which is in the position to win comfortably next week.

“The timing is absolutely central because it is clear any debate in parliament would have taken months,” said Mr Martigny. “If there had not been the municipal elections in between they could maybe have waited, but their fear was seeing a coalition on the streets, and in the elections, creating an alternative to the government and blocking this law, so Macron wanted to fulfil his promise to his base and get this reform done.”

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