Emmanuel Macron yesterday exacerbated the serious political and social crisis in France by deciding to approve by decree, without a final vote in the National Assembly, the unpopular pension reform. Three opposition groups immediately announced several motions of censure, which will be discussed next week, although they have a priori little chance of success.
The exceptional appeal to article 49.3 of the Constitution was announced almost at the last moment, minutes before the deputies met to vote on the reform. Macron and his government did not receive sufficient guarantees of reaching a majority. Thus they opted for what they believed to be the least bad solution.
Frantic hours were lived in Paris, with several meetings at the Elysée of the president with his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, and other members of the cabinet. The sensations changed with the passage of time. Optimism on the government side alternated with the realization that the numbers were not going to come out.
According to what was leaked to the press from the Elysée, Macron's final decision also weighed the danger of instability and the consequences in the markets, given that France is a highly indebted country, especially compared to Germany. The international context after the bankruptcy of several banks in the United States, the critical situation of Credit Suisse and the volatility of the stock markets were influential factors. Macron argued before his team that he was acting taking into account "the too great financial and economic risks" that a potential defeat in Parliament entailed.
The approval by decree of the reform does not avert the dangers, because the president and his government are touched. They are perhaps in their weakest position since Macron agreed to the Elysee in May 2017. Perhaps a financial risk has been avoided, but at the cost of adding fuel to the fire to the social conflict.
Frustration was great among Macron's deputies and his ministers. It has been several months of enormous effort and exhaustion -they were the target of insults and threats- to finally be forced to use an emergency constitutional tool.
Motions of no confidence should not prosper. They have been presented by La Francia Insumisa (LFI, radical left), the National Regrouping (RN, extreme right) and the diverse group Libertades, Independientes, Overseas and Territories (LIOT). This last motion has a transversal vocation.
The president of Los Republicanos (LR, traditional right), Éric Ciotti, solemnly promised that they would not vote on any motion that would bring down the government so as not to "add chaos to chaos." “The crisis situation in our country would not support a fatal blow to our democracy and our institutions,” he declared.
The assurances given by Ciotti are not very reliable because there are serious divisions in LR. These internal divergences were the ones that prevented them from contributing the necessary votes to guarantee that the reform would be approved in the Assembly. In any case, it is plausible to think that the majority of deputies from this conservative party do not want to bring down the government. In that case, Macron has threatened to dissolve the chamber and call elections, not a reassuring scenario for LR. Many of his seats would be in jeopardy.
The far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, spoke of the "total failure of the government" and called for the resignation of the prime minister. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the LFI, urged the mobilizations to continue and predicted "a good chance that we will have the last word."
The forcible adoption of the reform, which provides for a two-year delay – from 62 to 64 – the legal retirement age, further outrages the unions, which met to decide how to continue their protest. The union leaders consider that using article 49.3 after months of debate and discontent in the street is undemocratic behavior and contempt on the part of the Executive. Since the beginning of the year there have already been eight days of mobilizations and strikes. If the reform had been approved by vote, at least the union leaders would have valued the normal democratic procedure. On the other hand, the use of the decree incites them and encourages them to continue the protests, such as the one against the garbage cans in Paris, where there are already almost 10,000 tons of uncollected waste accumulated in the streets.
When appearing in the National Assembly to announce the decision taken by Macron, Prime Minister Borne was greeted with loud boos, a shouting that forced the president of the chamber to suspend the session for a few minutes. LFI deputies stood up, holding anti-reform banners, and sang La Marseillaise, while Borne tried to read her short speech.
The root problem of the current political tension is that Macron's supporters lost an absolute majority in the National Assembly in the legislative elections of June last year. The power system of the V Republic, very presidential, is not used to consensus and coalitions. To further complicate matters, the most extreme political formations, on the right and on the left, are very strong today.
Interviewed last night on the TF1 news, Borne insisted that a group of LR deputies preferred to "play a personal card", in contradiction with their previous positions, forcing the Government to act to save a vital initiative to guarantee the pension system . The Prime Minister recalled that the adopted text was discussed for 175 hours in Parliament and approved by the Senate, so the government cannot be accused of unilateral behavior.
