French Senate votes for Macron's pension plan, despite new protests

The French Senate on March 11 night adopted President Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reform plan in the wake of a seventh day of demonstrations that were not as large as authorities had expected.

One hundred and ninety-five members of the upper house of the French Parliament voted for the text, whose key measure is raising the retirement age by two years to 64, while 112 voted against, Reuters reports.

The protests - and rolling strikes that have affected refineries, public transport and garbage collections - aimed to pressure the government to withdraw the pension plan, which it said is essential to ensure the pension system does not run out of money.

If the committee agrees on a text, a final vote in both chambers is likely to take place on Thursday, but the outcome of that still seems uncertain in the lower chamber, the National Assembly, where Macron's party needs allies' votes for a majority.

If the government fears it won't have enough votes in the lower house, it is still possible for it to push the text through without a parliamentary vote, via a so-called 49:3 procedure.

An additional day of nationwide strikes and protests was planned for March 15.