France passes law raising retirement age amid outrage

FRANCE’S lower house voted yesterday to back President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62, in the teeth of angry street protests and a fierce battle in parliament.

Lawmakers in the National Assembly voted by 329 to 233 to approve the pension reform bill, defeating an attempted opposition filibuster and defying trade union threats to stage more strikes and days of protest.

Earlier, several thousand left-wing demonstrators had assembled on the Place de la Concorde, across the Seine from the National Assembly, chanting threats of a nationwide general strike against the draft law.