'Weakened' Macron sticks with pension bill, eyes new reforms: Report

French President Emmanuel Macron is looking to move on and work on new reforms in the coming weeks after his government barely survived a no-confidence motion on Monday over an unpopular pension reform, a source said.

Macron does not plan any reshuffle or snap elections and has ruled out withdrawing the pension law, which will raise the retirement age by two years to 64, the source who took part in meetings between Macron and allies on Tuesday told Reuters.

He will instead try and use a TV interview on Wednesday to “calm things down,” the source said.

With unions stepping up strikes and protests against the pension reform continuing across the country, Macron faces the most dangerous challenge to his authority since the ‘Yellow Vest’ revolt four years ago.

Some in Macron's own camp have warned him against continuing with business as usual.

‘We are all weakened. The president, the government and the majority,’ a senior MP in Macron's camp, Gilles Le Gendre, told Liberation newspaper. “It’s not because the law was adopted that we can do business as usual.”

Another MP in Macron’s camp, Patrick Vignal, bluntly urged the president to suspend the pension reform bill in the face of the anger it has triggered, and its deep unpopularity.

Protesters played cat-and-mouse with police in cities across France for a fifth night on Monday, setting bins and barricades on fire.

What may concern the executive is the large number of young people in the demonstrations.

Paris police said Tuesday that 234 people were arrested overnight in the capital mostly for setting fire to garbage in the streets.