The lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, gave final approval Wednesday to President Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial pension reform, dpa reported.
The final version of the bill was passed by a vote of 336 to 233, a result that was never in doubt, since Sarkozy's centre-right coalition has a clear majority in the body. The Senate had approved the measure on Tuesday.
The vote was the last parliamentary step in the process, which has been accompanied by nationwide strikes and mass street protests.
The bill will now be examined by the Constitutional Council, at the demand of the opposition Socialist Party. A decision could take as long as one month, after which the reform becomes law.
The reform gradually raises the retirement age for a minimum pension from 60 to 62, and from 65 to 67 for a full pension, by the year 2018.
It will start going into effect in the middle of next year, but will be reviewed in 2013, after a new president and parliament have been elected.
That ensures that the pension reform will be a major campaign issue in the 2012 elections, which could be bad news for Sarkozy and his UMP party, since a substantial majority of the French opposed it.
With about 18 months to go until the elections, Sarkozy's popularity has slipped to an all-time low, with several polls showing he now has the support of fewer than 30 per cent of French adults.
In the meantime, the protests against the reform have begun to ease, as have the petrol shortages caused by anti-reform strikes.
Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said he expected some 80 per cent of the country's service stations to be operational by early Wednesday as strikes ended at five of the country's 12 refineries.
In addition, train service was near normal Wednesday, and trash collectors in Marseille were back on the job after a two-week strike, confronted with thousands of tons of garbage.
Unions have called for more strikes and street protests for Thursday, but they are not expected to be of the same scale as previously.
However, the French civil aviation authority DGAC said Wednesday that it asked airlines to scrub 50 per cent of all scheduled flights at Paris's Orly Airport and 30 per cent of flights at the country's other airports Thursday.
Demonstrations have also been scheduled for November 6. dpa sm bve dms Author: Siegfried Mortkowitz