Macron survives vote of confidence

The French government narrowly escaped a vote of no confidence in the French Parliament (National Assembly) tabled in response to Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform plan. According to the official voting result, only nine votes were missing up to an absolute majority for a first, cross-party motion of no confidence.

That means there must have been a greater number of dissenters among conservative Republicans than was thought. The government had courted her with concessions worth billions.
278 MPs voted in favor of the motion of no confidence, nine too few to dismiss the government. A second motion by far-right politician Le Pen received just 94 yes votes.
The governing group's spokeswoman, Violette Spillebout, admitted the close result was "a difficult moment". "We will have to talk within the parliamentary group and the government majority about how things will proceed in the National Assembly," she said.
The pension reform has thus finally been passed. The reform increases the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 years. Anyone who has not paid in long enough to get a full pension currently usually works longer than 62.