The people versus Macron: round two

President Macron of France will have taken heart from yesterday’s Day of Action in which as many as a million public sector workers demonstrated their rejection of his proposed reform of the state pension system.

Billed as a general strike, the day was supposed to show that Macron had taken on the people and the people weren’t standing for it. Instead, in Paris the protest quickly deteriorated into the usual, dreary sequence of running battles between the police and anarchists whose only cause was destruction and the rejection of democratic order.

By mid-afternoon, with groups of helmeted casseurs launching attack after attack on the police, a majority of genuine protesters, including doctors, lawyers and teachers as well as the more obvious city employees, had clearly had enough of it. Whatever sense of purpose they began with was lost amid the clouds of CS gas and the shock of stun grenades. There were no stirring speeches. There was no central rally. Unusually for a Parisian manif, were no martyrs.

Paris had been brought to a standstill. The people had spoken. But to what end? No one seemed to know.

This morning, much of the rail network remained shut, and thousands of flights were cancelled at airports across the country. Whether it is a case of the morning after the night before or a sign of what is to come depends on whether or not the unions dig in for a fight and the willingness of their members to respond.

For Macron, yesterday was a severe test of his mettle. Last year, around about this time, the gilets-jaunes movement was threatening to tear the guts out of his presidency. Populism had been ripped from the grasp of the Far Left and Far Right and placed back in the hands of “the people,” which in France is always dangerous. Those who took part in the Winter of Discontent didn’t want a New Order, they wanted cheap diesel, jobs for themselves and their children and an assurance from the government that it would keep its promise to look after them in their old age.

Because it was spontaneous – an uprising seemingly out of nowhere – the gilet-jaune phenomenon left Macron totally wrong-footed. This time, he was better prepared. The police were out in force – more than 6,000 in Paris alone – and literally thousands of street were cordoned off. Demonstrators were “kettled” in hotspots such as the Place de la République and the Place d’Italie and obliged to shuffle their way along the unfashionable Boulevard de Magenta towards the notional objective of the Gare du Nord.

In reality, the demonstration, which included remarkably few gilets-jaune, never really got off the ground, and a darkness fell a majority of those taking part began to drift away, making the task of the police in dealing with the Ultras that much easier.

None of this is to say that France did not make its voice heard. Not only in Paris, but in Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes and other provincial capitals, the message was clear. Macron’s pension reforms are seen by millions as an attack on their birthright. They expect him to honour the contract at the heart of the Fifth Republic which states that the people will work for 30 years and then retire on full pensions, no ifs and no buts.

The President knows this and was careful yesterday, though his prime minister Edouard Philippe, to make clear that the relevant legislation aimed at rationalising the byzantine network of state entitlements, replete with “special” cases, had not yet been finalised and would not be published without taking into account the views of those most obviously affected.

Ministers and their advisers will be working overtime during the coming week to soften the language of reform and thus – if possible – to persuade the nation’s vast public sector (employing more than a third of the workforce) that it has not been forgotten and that retirement for most of them will continue to be enjoyed not only in the evening of their lives but in the late afternoon as well.

The core of the reform bill, when it emerges, will still be aimed at streamlining a system that just grew and grew down the years, taking so much into account at the individual level that no central premise remained. As things stand, a train driver employed by SNCF can retire at 50 on full pension, as can many other categories of public servants, including sailors. Given that the official retirement age is 62, the effect of this has been to penalise private sector workers, who are expected to soldier on beyond their middle years while their more cosseted fellow citizens play boules each day or enjoy a glass or three of kir in their local café.

How effective the mooted points-based alternative will prove, with pensions dependent on the number of years worked up to the age of 62, remains to be seen. It is one thing to soften the language, but change has to be real if the annual state pension deficit – reckoned as high as €19 billion – is ever to come down. For their part, the unions seem determined not to give in. Another mass demonstration has been called for Tuesday as well as a programme of anti-government agitation stretching well into the New Year. The Ultras will be up for it. The question is, will the people?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the Far Left in the National Assembly, said yesterday that the Day of Action would be remembered as a key date in the history of France. He may be right, but it seems unlikely. What is more probable is that the French will continue to blow hard and Macron will continue to tack. The people want reassurance; the President wants to hold on to his job.