PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s government bypassed parliament and on Thursday invoked special constitutional powers to raise the country’s retirement age, a move that puts it at odds with the French legislature and millions of protesters.
By requiring workers to remain at work until they are 64, rather than 62, Mr Macron is stripping away an entitlement that lies at the heart of France’s social model. Long and comfortable retirements are straining public finances while Mr Macron looks to boost military spending amid war in Ukraine.
Mr Macron huddled with lieutenants at the Élysée Palace on Thursday, just before the National Assembly was due to vote on the government’s pension revision proposal. With shaky parliamentary support, Mr Macron decided to use Article 49 of the French constitution, a controversial provision that allows governments to legislate without the consent of the legislature.
The move saved legislation, which is at the heart of Macron’s pro-business agenda. But it’s also given fresh ammunition to unions and far-left and far-right political parties, which have been mobilizing mass demonstrations for months and portraying Mr Macron as a distant authoritarian.
Strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to overhaul pensions continue across France. WSJ’s Noemie Bisserbe reports from Paris on where bin bags are piling up, what’s driving the opposition and what’s at stake. Photo: Jeremiah Gonzalez/Associated Press
Now Mr Macron faces threats from parties on the far right and far left to hold a no-confidence vote that, if successful, would force his government to resign and end pension reform. That effort faces a steep climb as it is opposed by many lawmakers from the conservative Les Republicains party, which holds the balance of power in the National Assembly.
The French leader, who vowed to govern as a consensus builder after his re-election last year, has been relegated to the role of a technocrat, foisting pro-market policies on a recalcitrant populace.
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Thousands of protesters poured into Place de la Concorde near the National Assembly on Thursday after the move, clashed with police and set scaffolding on fire.
Union leaders vowed to continue the demonstrations and strikes that have rocked the country. Public sector workers have walked out in droves, canceled classes and halted public transit. Garbage has piled up on the streets of Paris as garbage collectors have refused to remove rubbish until Mr Macron relents.
“This will revitalize the protest movement,” said Philippe Martinez, leader of the far-left CGT union.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Lille, France, on Thursday.
Photo: Sameer al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
In the National Assembly, dozens of lawmakers shouted down Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne when she invoked Article 49, drowning out her remarks with rude renditions of the French national anthem.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, later urged Macron to sack his prime minister, saying it would be an “additional slap in the face to the French people” if Ms Borne stayed in office. The National Rally and the NUPES – the left-leaning coalition of French Socialists, Communists and Greens – said they plan to retaliate with the no-confidence motions.
A spokesman for Mr Macron’s office declined to comment on his prime minister’s standing or the proposed motions of no confidence. Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt said in September that Mr Macron would dissolve the National Assembly if a no-confidence vote passed.
The crucial ballots in a no-confidence vote would be cast by the conservative Les Républicains – the same party that on Thursday failed to garner enough support among its lawmakers to persuade Mr Macron to vote on his pension revision.
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Les Républicains leader Eric Ciotti said his party’s lawmakers met on Thursday and decided not to vote on no-confidence motions proposed by National Rally or NUPES. Mr Ciotti said he supports Mr Macron’s pension overhaul, which gradually raises the retirement age over the next seven years, but acknowledged that not everyone in his ranks agrees with him.
“We are in a crisis of democracy,” he said.
Some lawmakers in Macron’s own party are taking the president’s use of Article 49 as a sign that the former investment banker has lost touch with national sentiment since his first election victory in 2017.
“I ask myself a very simple question, but with a certain sadness: the Macron of 2017, would he have made the same decision?” said Gilles Le Gendre, a lawmaker from Mr Macron’s Renaissance party and the party’s group’s former leader in the National Assembly .
The French leader is caught between demographic and geopolitical currents. The war in Ukraine has exposed gaps in Europe’s military and increased pressure on Mr Macron to increase military spending, which currently stands at 1.9% of France’s gross domestic product.
France spends around 14.5% of its GDP on pensions, compared to 7.5% in the US and 10.4% in Germany, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a rich nations club.
Demonstrators and police officers gathered at the Place de la Concorde in Paris on Thursday.
Photo: Yoan Valat/Shutterstock
As people live longer and the population ages, the number of active workers who fund pension payments for retirees is shrinking. According to government figures, in France in the early 1960s there were more than four workers for every pensioner. That number was 1.7 in 2020 and is projected to drop to 1.5 over the next decade, according to an independent panel of economists, lawmakers and union leaders that advises the government on pensions.
Mr Macron no longer has the dominant majority in Parliament that defined his first term. Back then, Mr Macron rewrote France’s rigid labor laws and abolished its wealth tax, with no backlash in Parliament. However, Mr Macron used Article 49 in a previous attempt to change France’s pension system, an effort he shelved when the Covid-19 pandemic hit France.
On Thursday, votes were being counted until Ms Borne drove to the Élysée Palace to confer with Mr Macron before heading to the chambers of Parliament. There, she was met with loud heckling from backbenchers as she struggled to raise her voice above the din.
“This reform is necessary,” she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke in Paris on Thursday.
Photo: Michel Euler/Associated Press
Write to Stacy Meichtry at [email protected] and Noemie Bisserbe at [email protected]
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