Emmanuel Macron faces a fresh day of strike action and protests against his unpopular plans to raise France’s minimum pension age from 62 to 64, amid questions over how the government intends to calm public opinion and move ahead if the bill is validated on Friday by the constitutional council.
Just as the president returned from a state visit to the Netherlands, where he was forced to contain the row over his comments on Taiwan, he faced a renewed domestic challenge as hundreds of thousands of people once again demonstrated across France.
After a request by the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, the constitutional council will make a ruling on whether the legislation is in line with the French constitution. Politicians on the left have also asked it to rule on whether a form of citizens’ referendum could be organised on the pensions changes.
Ministers are privately confident that the council will approve the changes, after the government used an executive order to push them through without a parliamentary vote last month. If so, Macron hopes to sign the new pensions rules into law immediately, so they can come into force before the end of 2023.
The government hopes this will put an end to almost three months of protests, which at times have culminated in violence and running battles with police. The demonstrations have focused a sense of widespread anger against Macron.
Trade unions said anger would remain and protests would continue if the bill was signed in.
Transport and schools were affected by strikes on Thursday, and some Paris bin-collectors resumed the capital’s refuse strike, which had stopped at the end of March after 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled up. Police expect that between 400,000 and 600,000 people will take part in nationwide protests, which would be less than half of the peak of nearly 1.3 million reached in March.
Although the numbers of people marching has decreased, the key issue for Macron is public opinion. Two-thirds of French people remain opposed to Macron’s raising of the pension age, and 52% want protests to continue even if the constitutional council does approve the pensions law on Friday, according to an Ifop poll for Le Journal du Dimanche.
Macron’s image has been shaken by the protests and once again he is being perceived as cut off from the streets and from people’s everyday concerns.
Frédéric Dabi, from Ifop pollsters, said that just 18% of French people believed Macron was close to their concerns, whereas 58% of people thought the far-right leader Marine Le Pen was, adding that the large difference between the two was “dizzying”.
Dabi told France Inter radio that Macron had in the past, unlike many presidents, managed to bounce back from unpopularity – after his labour law changes in 2017, the gilets jaunes anti-government protests of 2018 and 2019, the Covid pandemic, and the start of the war in Ukraine.
But opposition MPs on the left said that anti-Macron feeling was stronger than before.
Olivier Marleix, of the rightwing Les Républicains party, said: “I think the president has understood that he failed on something.” Marleix said that there had not been enough dialogue with trade unions over the pension changes.
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“The country must continue to move forward, work and face the challenges that await us,” Macron said during his visit to the Netherlands. He said the decision from the constitutional council on Friday would “bring an end to the democratic and constitutional procedures”, but that public debate would “continue, for sure”.
Having repeatedly refused talks with trade union leaders in recent weeks, Macron said he would invite labour representatives for discussions once the court decision was published. He said he knew “traces of our current disagreements will remain” but that he wanted to “look to the future”.
Sophie Binet, leader of the CGT union confederation said she was only prepared to enter talks if it was to scrap the pensions changes. “Talking about any other subject than this reform is out of the question.”
Macron linked the pension changes to the need for France to control public spending and his larger agenda for closer economic ties between EU members. “I’m proud of the French social model and I defend it, but if we want to make it sustainable we have to produce more,” he said. “We have to re-industrialise the country. We have to decrease unemployment and we have to increase the quantity of work being delivered in the country. This pension reform is part of it.”
Analysts said the level of opposition to the policy changes could have longer term repercussions, including a sense of widespread disillusionment with politics that could boost the far right.
Le Pen, whose far-right National Rally party, is the biggest opposition party in parliament, told BFMTV that if the pensions bill does pass into law: “We’ll just tell the French: vote for the National Rally.”
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