French PM backs freezing Macron’s pension reform to save government

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has told parliament that he supports suspending controversial 2023 pension reforms in the face of significant votes of no confidence later this week.

The changes, which increased the retirement age from 62 to 64, were seen as signature reforms under Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

“This autumn I will propose to parliament that the 2023 pension reform be suspended. [2027] Lecornu said “presidential election” while receiving applause from left-wing parties.

Lecornu was reappointed prime minister last week, just four days after his resignation, and his government needs the support of Socialist MPs in parliament to survive.

Opposition parties on the far right and far left have called for a vote of confidence in Lecornu’s government, known as a “sansma” vote, for Thursday morning and are demanding parliamentary elections.

Socialists have said they would be ready to support the new government only if Macron promises a complete suspension of pension changes.

“If he does not say clearly the words ‘immediate and complete suspension of the pension reform’, this will be a condemnation,” Socialist MP Laurent Baumel said earlier on French television. he said.

“He has his fate in his own hands. He knows what he has to do if he doesn’t want to be the prime minister who resigns every week.”

The reforms were finally passed by parliament in March 2023, less than a year after Macron was voted in for a second presidential term.

There were months of political debate, strikes and street protests, and eventually the bill had to pass without a vote in parliament using the constitutional mechanism known as 49:3.

Last week, Lecornu said it was something many French remember as “a wound to democracy”.

He made clear to MPs on Tuesday that suspending pension reform would cost €400 million (£350 million) in 2026 and €1.8 billion (£1.57 billion) in 2027. This needs to be “compensated by other savings,” Lecornu said.

Lecornu became France’s third prime minister last year, but even if he survives, he must pass a budget from parliament that will reduce the budget deficit, which this year amounts to 5.4% of economic output (GDP).

France’s public debt stood at 3.4 trillion euros, or almost 114% of GDP, earlier this year; this was the eurozone’s third-highest debt, after Greece and Italy.

Lecornu is one of Macron’s staunchest allies; So the decision to back away from such a controversial reform shows how eager the president is to avoid further turmoil.

Philippe Aghion, who was jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday, has previously said he too supports suspending pension reform because it would still come at a smaller cost than the instability that would follow the collapse of another government.

“We live in an age of crisis,” Lecornu told MPs. “Some want the situation to turn into a regime crisis, but this will not happen.”

Promising a “serious and credible budget”, the prime minister also vowed to stop relying on the 49:3 mechanism to implement legal changes without a vote. Every budget since late 2022 has had to be passed without a vote.

He repeatedly told the parliament that “the government will propose, we will discuss it, and you will vote.”

He said Parliament would have the “final say”.

Amid grumblings from MPs, Lecornu proposed setting up a working group to review pensions and said it should reach a decision by the next presidential election.

France’s budget deficit is well above the EU target of 3 percent of GDP and Lecornu said the reversal of pension reform “must be offset financially, including by cost-saving measures.” “This cannot be achieved at the expense of increasing the budget deficit.”

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical leftist France Indomitable Party (LFI) submitted a vote of confidence in Lecornu’s government on Thursday, but they will need the support of centre-left parties to oust Lecornu.

RN’s Sébastien Chenu confirmed that his party will vote against Lecornu later this week. “We are not fooled by anything and we cannot be bought,” he said. “Hello and goodbye, Mr. Prime Minister.”

Mathilde Panot of France Unbowed also attacked Lecornu and Macron. “Nobody believes you anymore,” he said.

But the Socialists’ victorious Boris Vallaud said the prime minister’s decision on pension reform was a “victory”.

“The French were waiting for your explanation, and we were waiting for a sign that you had heard them… Suspension of pension reform: here it is at last.”

The support of the centrist bloc and the Socialists should give Lecornu enough votes to pass his budget through parliament; but the numbers are still extremely tight and any breakdown in the ranks could lead to his ouster.

Le Pen and Mélenchon believe elections are the only way to end the political stalemate resulting from early elections that Macron has called for the summer of 2024.

That impasse turned into turmoil last week when Lecornu resigned as prime minister 26 days after Macron appointed him and just hours after naming his government.

After a week filled with political change and drama, Macron reappointed him late Friday.

The move was widely seen as a last-ditch attempt by the president to assert control over the increasingly out-of-control National Assembly, which has been split into three factions since the 2024 elections.

The suspended parliament resulted in a short-lived two prime ministers who were voted out within months as they tried to bring forward their annual budgets.

Eight days ago, Lecornu resigned without even appearing in front of MPs.