French Senate passes pension bill - BBC News

22 October 2010 Last updated at 19:14 GMT As many as three million protesters have taken to the streets in recent weeks The French Senate has passed a controversial pension reform bill, which has caused a series of strikes and protests around France.

The senators approved President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, and it could become law as early as next week.

Mr Sarkozy says the measure is necessary to reduce the deficit.

But hundreds of thousands have protested against what they see as an attack on their rights.

Senators passed the motion to raise the retirement age by 177 votes to 153, after the government used a special measure known as a guillotine to cut short the debate on the bill.

The changes would raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full state pension age from 65 to 67.

The government says the reform is needed to save the indebted pension system from collapse.

Unions say retirement at 60 is a hard-earned right and say the reform is unfair to workers.

Continue reading the main story Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris

President Sarkozy hopes the pension bill's passage through the Senate marks the beginning of the end of the crisis.

What happens next is that first thing on Monday, a joint committee of Senate and National Assembly members will meet to agree on a common text.

This final version will then be put to a simultaneous vote in both houses of parliament Tuesday or Wednesday.

At that point, the law will have been definitively adopted - and the government's calculation is that much of the steam will immediately be taken out of the protests. After all, why demonstrate against something you can no longer change?

But for the unions and the left, it is still not the end of the story. They say that until the law is actually promulgated - written into the statute books - they can still force it to be dropped.

That process normally takes two or three more weeks. In the meantime - and starting on Thursday - they will be keeping up the pressure.

The protest movement has been spearheaded by the trade unions, although all sections of society have been represented - including schoolchildren.

Most of the rallies have been peaceful, but on Friday clashes broke out at an oil refinery blockaded by workers after Mr Sarkozy ordered riot police to get control of the facility.

Two people were hurt outside the Grandpuits refinery east of Paris, which has been embargoed for the past 10 days.

The unions are blockading 12 facilities in a bid to change the government's mind.

Police also removed protesters from two fuel depots, in Toulouse and Grand Quevilly.

Opponents of the bill will now have a chance to take their objections to the constitutional court, before the bill becomes law.

The unions have called two further days of protests on top of the rolling strikes, on 28 October and 6 November.

However, the school half-term holidays begin on Friday night and run until 4 November, raising concerns among union members that the protests could lose momentum.

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