Amending the France pension law, the pension age was raised from 62 to 64 by French President Emmanuel Macron‘s signing into law on Saturday, despite widespread opposition.
After France’s highest constitutional body gave its approval, the signing took place shortly after.
The Constitutional Council rejected the opposition’s request for a referendum, but it also eliminated some of the amendments due to legal issues.
Following the council’s decision, demonstrators set fire across Paris, and 112 people were detained.
Twelve days of protests have taken place since the January reforms.
The measures will allegedly continue to be fought, according to labor groups, who have urged employees throughout France to go to the streets on May 1.
The reforms, according to President Macron, are necessary to prevent the France pension law and system from collapsing. Without a vote, the government imposed the amendments in March by using a special constitutional prerogative.
Olivier Dussopt, the minister of labor, predicts that the measures will take effect by September.
Trade unions made a fruitless last-ditch request to the president not to sign the pension-age rise into law after the Constitutional Court’s Friday verdict.
The unions said that because the court rejected the six concessions that had been added to the changes, what was already unfair had become “even more unbalanced”.
A so-called “senior index” intended to encourage businesses with more than 1,000 employees to hire people over 55 was among the measures that the nine members of the Constitutional Council rejected.
To allay concerns about the economic repercussions of raising the retirement age, Mr. Dussopt has committed to raising the employment rates of individuals who are over 50.
The authorities had ordered that no protests be held in front of the Paris location of the Constitutional Council until Saturday am, but demonstrators had assembled there on Friday, and the order was received with hollers.
Some protesters chanted that they would continue to demonstrate until the reforms were reversed.
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Later, when riot police attempted to contain the situation by intermittently using tear gas, multiple fires were started throughout the city. 112 persons, according to a police spokesman in Paris, have been detained.
While there were heated standoffs between demonstrators and police at times in Lyon, fires were also set during demonstrations in Rennes and Nantes.
The 21-year-old Lucy expressed her disappointment that “we don’t have the power anymore” while she was among the demonstrators who had gathered outside City Hall.
She said, promising to continue speaking out, “No matter how loud we shout, nobody is listening to us.
