Macron survives no-confidence vote but strikes and protests to continue across France

‘The government is dead in the eyes of the French’

Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence motion in the French National Assembly on Monday, after bypassing the lower house to push through a deeply unpopular change to the pension system.

The outcome will be a relief to Macron: a successful no-confidence vote would have sunk his government and killed the legislation, which is set to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.

But the vote was much closer than expected – the majority was only nine – and unions and protesters have vowed to carry on with strikes and demonstrations against the pension reform.