FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS – Tear gas canisters and trash cans on fire. First clashes near the Assemblée Nationale between the police and people protesting the lack of trust in the government with only 9 votes. Spontaneous demonstrations also take place in Strasbourg, Lyon, Toulouse, Dijon and Lille. It is the result of the vote in Parliament that “saved” President Emmanuel Macron and with it his pension reform.
In fact, the motion of no confidence in Elisabeth Borne’s government garnered 278 votes: just nine short of reaching an absolute majority. Under Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, the government remains in office and pension reform is passed by Parliament. It is due to come into force on September 1, but in the weeks and months to come, opposition efforts to prevent it will intensify.
France is in a serious political and social crisis, the debate in the National Assembly was marked by shouts and violent protests, after the announcement of the result at 7 p.m., the first demonstrators immediately flocked to Place Vauban in front of the Cathedral of the Invalides, for a spontaneous assembly banned by the prefecture and it is expected that anger and mobilization will increase in the coming hours, beyond the day of strikes and demonstrations already declared for Thursday March 23.
Spontaneous demonstrations multiplied just a few minutes after the vote. Dozens of people began to gather in Place Vauban near the National Assembly, shouting slogans like “Macron resign” and setting garbage cans on fire. There was no shortage of tensions with the police attacking the protesters and throwing smoke bombs to disperse them. Groups of protesters also gathered at Saint-Lazare train station, in the Opera district, where looting was reported, and along rue Reaumur, rue de Rivoli and rue Montmartre. Some have erected barricades using barriers, garbage bags and material stolen from road construction sites. In the evening, the police arrested seventy people.
The protest has also spread to the main centers of the country, from Nantes to Toulouse, from Rouen to Strasbourg. In Dijon, on the Place de la République, the crowd smashed the bus stops and sang the Marseillaise. In the capital and in Bordeaux, students have occupied universities in protest.
The unions – united for once – and the opposition parties do not want to give up, encouraged also by the government’s very narrow lead: it was expected that the missing votes were 20 or 30, and not 9. On the benches of Nupes, the coalition of radical left, signs immediately appeared with the words On Continue and RIP or People’s Initiative Referendum.
Opponents have organized a referendum to reject once and for all a reform judged to be unfair. Le Figaro reports that the referendum motion, signed by 250 MPs and senators and submitted to Parliament Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, has been sent to the Constitutional Court, which now has a month to consider it.
Supported by many peers, MP François Ruffin urges Macron not to promulgate the law, as President Chirac and his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin did in 2006 with the CPE (first employment contract) after four months of fierce popular protests.
The other path chosen by the opponents is recourse to the Constitutional Council, which has one month to give its opinion and could reject all or part of the reform (distant possibility). Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne remains in office, at least for tonight, but sees herself as a “detonator” and could be replaced by another figure, perhaps current Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, in what appears inevitable to be a far-reaching cabinet reshuffle.
In any case, President Macron will remain in the Elysée until 2027, but now he has to find a way to calm popular protests and get out of a deep political crisis. Macron hoped that the Républicains, the Gaullist right that is not part of the relative majority in government, would support pension reform, which would then be the first step towards a more structured alliance in parliament until an absolute majority is reached. That was not the case, not only did the 61 Républicains MPs not vote in favor of the reform last week – which is why the government decided to override Parliament by resorting to Article 49(3) – but tonight many of them did the government, which is one step away from approving it, voted against the motion of no confidence.
A summit meeting between Macron, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and the heads of the governing coalition has been organized for tomorrow morning in the Elysée. In the evening, the President receives the parliamentarians of the majority instead.
(Giuseppe Scuotri collaborated)