French President Emmanuel Macron This Monday, his government is at stakein a motion of no confidence from MPs for enforcing a pension reform at the age of 64, using the 49.3 mechanism that does not require a parliamentary vote.
Her Prime Minister, Elizabeth Borne, could take the lead because the 20 pro-independence MPs promoting her have so far garnered just 258 of the 287 votes needed to overthrow her. But the crisis has calcined it. Sooner or later he will resign to put France back on the road to pacification.
Ministers and union leaders are urging President Macron to address the French people after days of often fierce protests against his decision to push through parliament without a vote to raise the retirement age.
The riots have raised fears a repeat of the yellow vest movement, who paralyzed parts of the country for months during his first term as president.
Wooden pallets burn during a protest against the pension reform law. AP photo
Quiet
Macron has been silent since Thursday, when Borne, his prime minister, was booed by MPs after he announced he would approve the reform by decree. The prime minister wept in a hall of the National Assembly as thousands of people spontaneously gathered to protest in the Place de la Concorde.
“On the decision to avoid the pension reform vote 80 percent of the population opposed itand even half of the president’s supporters,” said Bernard Sananès, head of polling institute Elabe. Clashes erupted between demonstrators and police across France.
the world He claimed Macron’s advisers were considering reaching out to the nation to find “a way out of the political deadlock.” But that’s what the participants told the newspaper he has “no scruples or remorse” for bypassing the parliamentary vote and said he “didn’t have a choice”.
Macron seems determined to resist: will he succeed in implementing a measure that he believes is crucial to improving the country’s finances? And why are the French so upset at the prospect of having to work two more years until they’re 64?
the motion of confidence
One of the votes of confidence was presented by the right-wing Agrupación Nacional (RN), under the direction of Marine Le Pen, and the other by Liot, a small centrist party. If either is successful, the government must resign and leave Macron to form a new government, or dissolve parliament and call new elections. Even if Borne survives the movement, his days appear to be numbered.
Liot, who nominated his motion as “bipartisan,” has a better chance as the left is unwilling to line up behind Le Pen. To get the necessary 287 votes in the National Assembly, he needs the support of about 30 of the 64 center-right Republicans.
Two people walk past overflowing garbage cans near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. AP photo
Éric Ciotti, the Republican leader, has declined to support the motion, claiming: “We don’t want to add more chaos to the chaos”. He is also concerned that his party will do poorly in snap elections. A handful of Ciotti’s lawmakers have indicated they will challenge him.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, has tried to persuade more to follow suit by promising that if the crisis leads to an election, his party will not field candidates against him.
hopes for a referendum
Opponents of pension reform have another chance to thwart it tried to call a referendum. They have already secured the support of more than 185 MPs needed and have nine months to collect the signatures of a tenth of voters, just over 4.85 million people. But they must file their challenge before the President enacts it.
His chances of success seem good. Activating the process would also mean that the new pension system could not be rolled out before the referendum, thwarting Macron’s plans to start rolling out changes from September and overshadowing the rest of the government’s work.
The country is in a state of rebellion, with spontaneous demonstrations suppressed by the police. On Saturday, they banned demonstrations on the Place de la Concorde and on the Champs-Elysées, the emblematic boulevard of the yellow vests that paralyzed the Macron government for two years. This crisis can be worse.
People challenge authority. In France, prefectural authorization is required for marches. Nobody asks for it. Last night there were again 2,000 people on the Place de la Concorde, gassed by the police. But an impromptu demonstration that left Place de la Italie at sunset surprised and brought together 4,000 people.
The police cracked down. But at midnight, another impromptu demonstration took place on Rue de Charonne, where the terrorist attacks in the Bastille took place. Thursday is the big union march.
Police in the capital announced a ban on gatherings in Place de la Concorde, near the Parliament building, after protesting for two nights using tear gas and repression to disperse protesters. whose ranks had been swollen by members of the black blocs,” the anarchists who hate syndicalists so much.
Industrial unrest continues, symbolized by Around 10,000 tons of rubbish pile up in the streets of Paris because of a garbage disposal strike. Incinerators remain closed. The biggest threat to the economy is strikes at oil refineries, which are spreading while train services have also been disrupted.
Important school exams, due to start this week, are also in jeopardy. The ninth in a series of one-day nationwide strikes by millions of workers is scheduled for Thursday.
In this no-vote pension reform crisis, there is a philosophy that the rest of the world does not understand and that is a French peculiarity. In France, a revolutionary country, “People want to work to live, not live to work”. There is a French “arte de vivre” that starts with a 35-hour week. A legacy of Socialist Minister Martine Aubry that nobody could change.
They pay heavy taxes for the state to protect them, to get 85 percent of their contributions when they retire, to enjoy life after retirement. It’s different from other countries. But France has always been different and is the fourth largest power in the world because it has high levels of productivity.
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