In France, the upper house of parliament voted to approve a controversial reform of the pension system.

Before that, hundreds of thousands of people again went to

protest actions

against this draft law.

This is reported by Le Monde.

195 senators voted for the reform, 112 spoke against it.

"An important stage has been passed," said Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne after the vote.

She added that, in her opinion, the government has a parliamentary majority to adopt reforms.

Now they have to develop a final project, which will then be submitted to both houses of the parliament for a final vote.

If the government fails to muster a majority before the vote, Bourne can invoke a rarely used and highly controversial constitutional tool known as Article 49/3 to push the law through without a vote.

It will be recalled that more than 1.2 million people took part in

protests

against raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 in France.

People took to the streets all over the country. 

The majority of the French oppose raising the retirement age.

However, President Emmanuel Macron is convinced that this step is crucial for improving the pension system. 

The pension reform was supposed to start in 2020, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The reform provides that the retirement age will increase by three months every year until 2030.

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