French Prime Minister supports freezing Macron’s pension reform to save the government

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has told parliament that he supports suspending controversial pension reforms for 2023, in the face of a crucial no-confidence vote later this week.

The changes, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 years, were considered distinctive reforms in the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

“This fall I will propose to Parliament to suspend the 2023 pension reform until the presidential elections (2027),” Lecorno said to applause from left-wing parties.

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

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

The Socialists said they would be willing to support the new government, but only if it promised a complete suspension of Macron’s pension changes.

Socialist MP Laurent Bommel said earlier on French television: “If he does not explicitly say the words ‘immediately and completely suspend pension reform’, it will be tantamount to censure.”

He added, “He holds his fate in his hands. He knows what he must do if he does not want to be the prime minister who resigns every week.”

The reforms were finally pushed through parliament in March 2023, less than a year after Macron was elected to a second presidential term.

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

Last week, Lecornu said this was something many French people remembered as a “wound in democracy.”

On Tuesday, he explained to MPs that suspending pension reform would cost €400m (£350m) in 2026 and another €1.8bn (£1.57bn) in 2027. Lecornu said this should be “compensated with other savings”.

Lecornu is France’s third prime minister over the past year, but even if he survives, he needs to get a budget through parliament to reduce a budget deficit that is on track to reach 5.4% of economic output this year.

Earlier this year, French public debt reached 3.4 trillion euros, or nearly 114% of GDP, the third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy.

Lecornu was one of Macron’s most loyal allies, so his decision to back away from such a controversial reform shows how keen the president is to avoid further unrest.

Philippe Aghion, who was jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday, said earlier that he also supports suspending pension reform, because it will come at a lower cost than the cost of instability that might follow another government collapse.

“We are living in an era of crisis,” LeCorneau told lawmakers. He added: “Some want the situation to turn into a regime crisis, but that will not happen.”

The Prime Minister promised a “serious and credible Budget”, and also pledged to end reliance on the 49:3 mechanism to push through legal changes without a vote. Since late 2022, every budget has had to pass without a vote.

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

He added that Parliament would have the “final say.”

Amid audible groans from lawmakers, Lecornu proposed setting up a working group to look into pensions, which he said would have to reach a decision by the time of the next presidential election.

France’s budget deficit is well above the EU target of 3% of GDP, and Lecornu said the rollback on pension reform must be “compensated financially, including through cost-saving measures. This cannot be done at the expense of increasing the deficit.”

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Intransigent Party both submitted votes of confidence in Lecornu’s government on Thursday, but they will need the support of centre-left parties to unseat him.

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

France Unbowed’s Mathilde Panot also took issue with Lecornu and Macron. “No one believes in you anymore,” she said.

But Boris Valo of the Socialists said that the Prime Minister’s decision to reform the pension system was a “victory.”

“The French were waiting for your statement and we were waiting for the signal that you heard them… The pension reform comment: here it is at last.”

The support of the Center Bloc and the Socialists should give Lecornu enough votes to pass his budget in parliament – but the numbers remain very small, and any dissent in his ranks could lead to his ouster.

Le Pen and Mélenchon believe elections are the only way to end the political deadlock resulting from snap elections called by Macron in the summer of 2024.

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

In a week of political transformations and drama, Macron reappointed him late on Friday.

The move is widely seen as a last-ditch effort by the president to exert control over an increasingly rudderless National Assembly, which has split into three distinct factions since the 2024 vote.

This hung parliament resulted in two short-lived prime ministers who were voted out within months when they attempted to present their annual budgets.

Eight days ago, Lecorno resigned before he could even face the deputies.