Paris France is taking to the streets and the President is silent: Emmanuel Macron seems to be standing above the protests against his pension reform these days. “To date, there has been no government response to the massive mobilization,” the coalition of the country’s eight major unions said in a statement. This is a “serious democratic problem” and could lead to an “explosive situation”.
While Macron appears determined to get the pension bill passed in Parliament by the end of the month, French unions continue massive strikes. They called on the president to withdraw his reform plans, which include raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, in the face of street pressure.
Transport Minister Clément Beaune expected “significant disruptions” to local transport, long-distance trains and airports until at least Friday. Connections to and from Germany are also affected. Striking workers continued to shut down refineries on Wednesday. According to French media, truck drivers again blocked roads and access roads to ports.
Macron’s spokesman Olivier Véran was basically ready for dialogue. “The government’s door is more than open,” he replied Wednesday to workers’ representatives demanding a meeting with the president.
The newspaper “Les Échos” reported, however, that behind the scenes the government in Paris probably has a different attitude: Macron should better not go “to the arena”. According to the president’s advisers, opponents of the reform would try to personalize the debate “in order to reactivate feelings of rejection against the head of state”.
France’s government is pushing ahead with pension reforms
In addition, the government’s assessment is that the protests were not as violent as feared. Instead of the “black Tuesday” announced by the unions, there was more of a “grey Tuesday,” a government official told Les Echos. Although participation was high, it was “not a landslide”.
France’s government is betting that protests against pension reforms will subside over time.
(Photo: dpa)
“We are making further progress,” it said, with a view to the parliamentary procedure in the National Assembly and the Senate. Both chambers could agree on a joint legal text in the next week, which would then be put to the final vote in March.
According to polls, a majority of French support the protest movement. However, Macron’s government is apparently counting on this support dwindling the longer inconveniences such as closed schools or canceled trains persist. Budget Minister Gabriel Attal expressly thanked the “tens of thousands of French people who keep our country running every day despite the strikes” this week.
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Macron tried last year to involve the social partners in his reform project. But the talks failed, according to the unions, “everything had already been worked out” with the president’s plans.
According to the will of the President, the French should retire at the age of 64 from 2030. The statutory retirement age, currently 62, is to be gradually raised from September 2023.
Macron calls unions to ‘accountability’
The government wants to abolish generous early retirement for certain occupational groups. Long-term employment histories in particular should be taken into account. In addition, the minimum pension is to be raised by EUR 100 to around EUR 1,200 per month.
In one of his rare speeches on pensions since the beginning of the year, Macron called on the union to be “responsible” in February. Protests against the reform are of course a constitutional right, said the President when asked about his pension problem at home on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels. The protest movement should not “block the rest of the country”.
Millions took to the streets again on Tuesday to demonstrate against Macron’s pension plans.
(Photo: dpa)
According to the police, 1.28 million people took to the streets across the country on Tuesday, the sixth national day of protest, and the unions spoke of 3.5 million participants. In some sectors, such as transport and energy, strikes are currently continuing indefinitely. Further protest days with large demonstrations are planned for Saturday and the coming week.
Economics professor Tomasz Michalski from the HEC in Paris expects that the trade unions could soon run out of steam. “The protest movement may appear massive in the first few days, but the overall economic situation and the fragmentation of workers’ groups are not conducive to protracted strikes across France,” he said.
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For Macron, however, the passage of the reform is “absolutely crucial,” said Michalski. “In his second term in office, there is nothing more important for him domestically.” He will probably be able to count on the support of the conservative-bourgeois Republicans when it is passed. Macron is dependent on votes from the opposition because his center alliance lost an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in June 2022.
So far there have been six days of nationwide protests in France.
(Photo: IMAGO/Le Pictorium)
A clause in the French constitution allows the president to enact laws without parliamentary approval in exceptional cases. Macron absolutely wants to avoid pulling the so-called Article 49.3 of the constitution, said Michalski. “He wants to implement the reform with the backing of at least some members of the opposition.”
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