France in turmoil: Can Macron survive the people’s wrath?

Today in France could be make or break day for Emmanuel Macron. The trade union movement, with the full support of Opposition deputies of both left and right, has called a nationwide protest to halt the government’s controversial pension reform Bill that would raise the headline age of retirement from 62 to 64. 

The Bill is scheduled to become law at the end of the year without having been put to a vote in the National Assembly. Macron was persuaded that he did not have the necessary votes to secure its passage and resorted to an emergency provision of the constitution, known as article 49.3, to force it onto the statute books. 

Ever since, France has been in a state of incipient rebellion. Protests have erupted in towns and cities across the country, which was already in the grip of strikes by both public and private sector workers. Hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested, piles of uncollected rubbish have been burned in the streets, and long lines have built up at filling stations as a consequence of an ongoing blockade of oil refineries. 

Until the President’s last-minute decision to opt for 49.3, it was starting to look as if his longstanding commitment to pension reform might actually bear fruit. Support for mass protests was falling away and strikes were making less and less impact. In spite of the fact that, according to opinion polls, at least two-thirds of voters want nothing to do with Sixty-Four, people were wearying of the struggle – 49.3 changed all that.  

The question now is, who will blink first, the President or the people? 

Yesterday, in an exercise to show that he is listening, Macron granted an interview with two journalists from TF1 and France 2, the nation’s most respected television stations. He was careful not to sit behind the gilded desk of his office in the Élysée Palace. Instead, he sat at one side of a modest table and the two journalists at the other. It was his chance, however belatedly, to explain that an outpouring of rage without precedent this century could not possibly be justified by a modest reform of the pension system. 

In the event, he said little that he has not said many times in the past. An overhaul of the pensions system was necessary because the population was ageing and people were living longer. Care had been taken to ensure that those who entered the workforce early would not have to work until they were 64. Nor would those in high-stress jobs or jobs that were physically demanding. But unless something was done, and done quickly, the money to pay out pensions would start to run out as early as 2030. 

The reform package would not be paused. Nor would there be fresh elections to the Assembly or a referendum. 

“Between short-term opinion polls and the broader interest of the nation,” he said, “I choose the latter. If that means I have to accept unpopularity today, then I accept it.” 

You can understand why the French are protesting. State pensions are a lot higher in France, where occupational pensions are not common, than in the UK. The minimum payout, even to those who have never worked, is €11,000 for individuals and €17,000 for couples. Pensions for those who have contributed over a 40-year period can be as high as €42,000 (£37,000) a year, with top-ups from mandatory investment  schemes adding as much as a further €20,000. An unmarried worker in rural France, with final-year earnings of €26,000, can look forward to a state pension of some £15,000 a year, plus free healthcare and, if required, a place in a government-funded care home.  

Yet there can be little doubt that the President has logic on his side. Elsewhere in Europe, including the UK, retirement at 65, 66, even 67, is the new norm. But in France, the idea that they may have to keep on working until they are 64 is viewed by citizens as wilful provocation – proof, if proof were needed, that Macron is a tyrant. 

Context, as ever, provides the key to what is going on. Nothing in politics is ever about what it is about, and what the present wave of unrest is about is not so much pension reform as the sense nationwide that government is being imposed on the people without their consent. 

The civil unrest that shook France in the summer of 1968 was essentially an anti-capitalist uprising, spearheaded by students, that somehow got out of hand. What we are seeing in the country today is not dissimilar – a revolt by millions of ordinary citizens against a measure that would have little impact on most of their lives but is seen as emblematic of a president whose lofty economic dogma looks devoid of empathy or any understanding of the lives or ordinary people. 

If Macron succeeds in outlasting the protests and presses ahead with his reform agenda, his presidency may yet come to be seen, if not exactly as visionary, then at least as realistic. France cannot live beyond its means indefinitely. Specifically, it cannot afford to offer generous pensions that are not fully funded. But if the unions and Opposition deputies, never mind “the people,” understand that simple truth, there is thus far little sign of it. Today’s demonstrations in Paris and beyond will show just how far they are prepared to go in pursuit of their alternative view of history.