PARIS (Reuters) – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Tuesday suspended a historic pension reform from 2023 until after the 2027 presidential election, bowing to pressure from left-wing parliamentarians who demanded such a measure to ensure his political survival.
Lecornu made the announcement in Parliament as part of a last-ditch attempt to forge the conditions for the approval of a reduced budget for 2026.
Lecornu’s decision represents an acknowledgment by French President Emmanuel Macron that scrapping pension reform — which he considers one of his main economic legacies — was the only way to guarantee the survival of Lecornu, his sixth prime minister in less than two years.
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“I will propose to Parliament, starting this autumn, that we suspend the 2023 pension reform until the presidential election,” Lecornu told parliamentarians. “No increase in the retirement age will occur between now and January 2028.”
France is in the midst of its worst political crisis in decades, with a succession of minority governments seeking to impose deficit-reduction budgets through a truculent legislature divided into three distinct ideological blocs.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Marco Trujillo)
