The Latest Breaking News on Macron's opponents snub cross-party talks on tackling political deadlock

Paris (AFP) - French unions on Wednesday said last-ditch talks with the prime minister to ease tensions over a divisive pension reform were a "failure" and called for record turnout at protest rallies the next day.

French trade union leaders have walked out of talks with the country's prime minister after failing to find a compromise on the contentious plan to raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64 years

France's labour unions will keep up their fight against a planned rise of the legal retirement age, they said on Wednesday, after a meeting with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne failed to end months of gridlock over a deeply unpopular reform.

Why the much-protested Gallic gold card system has no similarity to ours.

French authorities see the police as protectors who ensure that citizens can peacefully protest President Emmanuel Macron’s contentious retirement age increase

French President Emmanuel Macron will head to China next week for a rare visit to the rising superpower, in an awkward balancing act between his global statesman ambitions and his struggle to contain embarrassing pension protests at home. The French leader, whose decision to ram much-disputed pension legislation through parliament…

French President Emmanuel Macron will head to China next week for a rare visit to the rising superpower, in an awkward balancing act between his global statesman ambitions and his struggle to contain embarrassing pension protests at home.

Nearly all of France’s trade unions have agreed to meet with French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne next week, though the government has said it will not change its position on its contested pension reform. The changes have not been implemented, pending a decision by the Constitutional council on 14 April.

President Emmanuel Macron's drive to ram through legislation raising France's retirement age despite mass protests is creating rifts between ministers and his allies amid frustration that the government has not resolved the standoff, insiders say.

French President Emmanuel Macron sought to rally citizens around a plan to save water on Thursday and stressed that protests will not stop reforms, in a nod to both climate change and an unpopular pension bill.

In France these days, there is little common ground between the Élysée Palace and civil society. Despite President Emmanuel Macron’s occasional rhetoric to the contrary, power appears to be exercised from the top down, with violence erupting and spreading, overshadowing meaning and content.