The French Senate on Saturday evening gave the green light to a controversial pension reform project pushed by President Emmanuel Macron despite massive demonstrations against the measure. Lawmakers gave the green light to the bill with 195 votes in favor and 112 votes against, according to an Upper House review, indicating that the votes against approving the measure are largely in line with socialist, communist and environmental groups.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born said the measure, taken “after a hundred hours of debate,” is “a decisive step towards a reform that secures the future” of French citizens’ pensions.

For his part, the country’s Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, stressed that the pension reform, which has “the sole purpose of being able to continue to pay 20 million pensions every month in the near future”, is intended “for the French, who have no other asset but their work, so we are working to keep this system.

mass protests

Hours before, a million people across France had protested against the pension reform, organizers said, who indicated 300,000 of them would have concentrated on the streets of Paris alone.

The Paris Prefecture of Police estimated the number of participants in the capital at 48,000, while the Ministry of the Interior confirmed 368,000 protesters in 251 rallies and demonstrations recorded across France.

According to police, this is the day with the lowest participation since mobilization began seven weeks ago, a far cry from 963,000 on February 11 or a record 1.28 million on March 7. “Days don’t compare, they add up,” said Laurent Escur, secretary general of the National Union of Autonomous Trade Unions (UNSA).

The government’s plan proposes to raise the official retirement age from 62 to 64, increase the number of years required to receive the maximum pension, and remove the special regimes that exist today for certain sectors.