PARIS: France’s Senate voted on Saturday to approve a deeply unpopular reform to the country’s pension system, hours after demonstrators took to the streets to oppose the cornerstone policy of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term in office.

Senators passed the reforms by 195 votes to 112, bringing the package another step closer to becoming law. A committee will now hammer out a final draft, which will then be submitted to both the Senate and National Assembly for a final vote.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told AFP that she believed the government had a parliamentary majority to get the reforms passed into law.

Tensions flared on Saturday evening, after protesters threw objects at security forces, with rubbish bins burned and windows broken in Paris. In Paris, 48,000 people took part in rallies, compared to police forecasts of around 100,000.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023