Last Tuesday, French prime minister Élisabeth Borne presented President Emmanuel Macron’s long-anticipated “pension reform” to the National Assembly. The controversial measure promises to raise France’s full retirement age to sixty-four by 2030 (it currently stands at sixty-two), while also requiring forty-three years of employee contributions for a complete pension.

The reform isn’t yet law: it still has to face the Council of Ministers on January 23, to determine its constitutionality, and then a parliamentary debate next month. Macron, who lacks a parliamentary majority, can draw on the near-unqualified support of Les Républicains (LR), the mainstream right-wing party he’s governed in tacit agreement with. Yet, the rest of the parliamentary opposition has come out against the project to varying degrees.

Importantly, the major trade unions have also shown uncommon coordination — calling for a united mobilization against raising the retirement age on January 19. It is the first such joint mobilization in twelve years.