French conundrum: Pension reform spells crisis for Macron

WASHINGTON: It was an extraordinary scene that epitomized the political storm France has walked into.

As Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was making her way to the National Assembly’s podium Thursday afternoon, lawmakers from the opposition stood up, chanting the Marseillaise and holding signs saying “no to 64 years” and “democracy.”

The Assembly’s president interrupted the session for things to calm down. But when Borne took the floor a few minutes later, she still had to drown out the parliamentarians’ boos.

“Based on article 49.3 of the constitution, I engage the government’s responsibility,” she yelled, announcing that a controversial pension reform increasing France’s minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years would be pushed through without a vote in the lower house of parliament.

Paragraph 3 of Article 49 allows the prime minister to act unilaterally. The only way to stop a bill that was passed under this rule would be to bring down the government.

Headwinds against what was by many perceived as an authoritarian move were also blowing outside the parliament, following weeks of protests against the pension reform.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris and other cities across the country, some of them staying late into the night and clashing with riot police.

“What happened was absolutely unheard of... it was terrible to see how the National Assembly went completely crazy,” Bruno Cautres from Paris-based think tank Centre for Political Research told DW.

“This highlights that something is not right in the French political system we can see that in our regular polls, which show that people want a more participative democracy where unions and civil society are involved in the elaboration of legal texts,” Cautres said.

Opposition parties have filed two no-confidence motions that will be put to the vote on Monday. The French government has received the support of the leaders of the conservative Republicans.

Their 60 votes would give President Emmanuel Macron’s minority coalition the needed majority to fend off the no-confidence votes. And yet, the same leaders had already pledged their party’s backing for the pension reform. But not enough Republicans agreed to follow that lead, which is why President Macron deemed a parliamentary majority for his reform unlikely and decided to trigger the 49.3.

Vincent Martigny, a professor for political science at Nice University and Paris-based Ecole Polytechnique, thinks the move has plunged France into a political crisis that is here to stay, at least in the medium term. While President Macron’s job is not directly threatened, running the country seems set to become a headache.

“The government in its current form is fatally injured, just like during a corrida, a bullfight,” Martigny said to DW, adding that PM Borne would almost certainly have to step down.

“If one of the no-confidence votes gets through, the government will fall and the president is likely to dissolve the National Assembly,” Martigny said.

“If the government survives the vote, Macron can either withdraw the reform, which seems highly unlikely, or stick to it, which will spark a social crisis with consequences unknown that could include snap parliamentary elections,” he added.

The president, meanwhile, argues France needs the reform to maintain its financial credibility on international markets, where it refinances its debt that stands at about 110 percent of France’s GDP.

“I consider that the financial and economic risks [of not carrying out the reform] are too big,” Macron said in front of the cabinet.