Argentine Congress upholds Milei veto of pensions increase amid protests

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00As President Javier Mele was winning the battle inside the National Congress, outside, anger

00:05among protesters was rising. There were clashes with police, but to little effect on the five

00:11hours of stormy debate inside the chamber. The opposition failed to gather the votes

00:17required to bypass the presidential veto.

00:20Mele had used his prerogative to defeat a bill that would have raised pensions by 8.1

00:26per cent. Pensions in Argentina lag far behind rampant inflation, which has been as high

00:31as 95 per cent since the start of the year. Unable to make ends meet, Argentinians are

00:38increasingly desperate.

00:40I'm retired and I don't have enough. I buy two kilos of meat, two kilos of bread and

00:46it's all gone.

00:49I don't make it to the end of the month. I can't. Like everybody, I have had to stop

00:54buying food. I've had to change a lot of what I buy.

00:58Since his inauguration last December, Javier Mele has been imposing punishing austerity

01:03on the country, he says, to balance Argentina's budget. But though inflation has eased in

01:09recent months, poverty continues to rise. A report by the Catholic University of Argentina

01:15says 55 per cent of Argentinians now live below the poverty line, with 17.5 per cent

01:20destitute, the highest rate since the country's Great Depression of 2002.

Category

Transcript

Recommended