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Amid the sea of ​​political flags, balloons and posters carried through the streets of Paris this week by opponents of President Emmanuel Macron, one of France’s smaller Communist parties may have captured the mood of the giant demonstration.
“Macron humiliates the Republic,” he said, presenting the stony-faced president, dressed in royal regalia channeling France’s King Louis XIV, a monarch who wields power and whose critics love to bask in his own glory.
“King Emmanuel I,” as Macron is now called by many detractors, has had an existential war with the powerful labor movement of the country for more than three months, with each side trying to exhaust the other into capitulating. controversial issue of pension reform.
The country and the capital Paris were rocked by wider protests on Tuesday as union members called for a 10th general strike. Unions said more than two million took part, while France’s interior ministry put the figure at 750,000.
Whatever the numbers, the cumulative impact on the French economy of the disruption is significant.
On Tuesday, businesses were closed, train and transit systems were shut down and famous tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower were off limits, angering visitors and dampening the much-needed post-Covid tourism boom.
The French government even appealed to the English King Charles III Postpone the visitrobbing Macron of the opportunity to greet the king at the Palace of Versailles, France’s old royal home.
Macron, 45, a former investment banker, said his aim was to make France’s economy more internationally competitive and ensure the long-term viability of the country’s public pension plan.
His goal is not surprising: he introduced pension reform during his first term as president, but abandoned it due to street protests and the COVID-19 pandemic.
WATCH | Angry protests in France:
Hundreds of thousands of people continue to demonstrate in France against controversial pension reforms. The protests were largely peaceful, but there were several violent clashes with the police.
‘Where is the limit, here?’
The latest controversial reform means most people will have to work an extra two years until they turn 64 before they start getting benefits.
While that is younger than in Canada, where most people can qualify at age 65, French union members say the country has higher productivity levels than other industrialized economies.
Opponents say Macron is forcing French workers to downsize, and to work harder and longer before retiring.
The law would also extend the time a person must contribute to get a full pension from 42 to 43 years. However, the lowest-income pensioners will also see their income increase by five percent.
“It’s better to block the country for two months than to have to work for two extra years in difficult conditions,” said Santiago Kadeyan, 21, who walked Tuesday with his 17-year-old sister Amanda as part of the group. called International Socialist Alternative.
Kadeyan, a medical student, said young people fear that Macron wants to privatize France’s social security network – including pensions – and that there will be few left when his generation needs it.
“In 2010, we have raised the retirement age from 60 to 62, and now from 62 to 64. When I am like 60, will they say that they will raise it from 85 to 87? Where is the limit, here?” said in Paris’ Place de la Republique, where demonstrators gathered at the beginning of their march.
This is a theme CBC News heard over and over again when talking to young people at the Paris demonstrations that made up a large portion of the people on the streets.
“Many of my friends are suffering from burnout,” said Marie Elebe, 27, who walked with members of the Paris LGBT community.
“We are working for less than the parents. We are not sure if we can have children and we are angry because we don’t have a good life. We don’t want to just work for a living.”
Bill has been approved
The French Parliament has approved the pension bill through the rarely used section 49.3 of the French Constitution. Instead of sending the law to a parliamentary vote, on March 20 French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tested the entire government with a motion of no confidence.
Macron’s side won by a narrow margin, but the move was incendiary, sending more people onto the streets days later and turning the pension issue into greater anger at what Macron’s opponents claim are authoritarian tactics.
The next important moment will come on April 14 when France’s highest court will decide whether some or all of the new laws are constitutional.
Although opinion polls show Macron’s popularity has dropped to 30 percent, his supporters insist he will not back down.
“Every time you change (the) pension system, you have a lot of demonstrations,” said Christopher Weissberg, a member of Macron’s party in the French National Assembly representing French citizens living in Canada and the United States.
“If you want to get it done, at some point you have to go through this.”
Weissberg said the protesters are right to worry that older workers over 60 will have a harder time keeping jobs, especially those working on assembly lines and manufacturing.
But he said Macron also had plans to tackle the problem.
“They will see that the next reform, for example, will be about how to raise salaries. I hope they will see that after retirement, which is mandatory to maintain our system, they can get something else,” Weissberg said in an interview.
Others who have studied the French pension system are not so sure.
Bruno Palier, a professor and researcher at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris, said the French trade union movement is trying to lead a workplace revolution towards a better work-life balance.
More than two decades ago, France moved to a 35-hour work week, down from 40, with the idea that if people worked less, there would be more jobs to do, Palier said. Instead, he says people just work hard, and when older workers retire, younger workers don’t replace them.
That partly explains deep skepticism about Macron’s pension overhaul, he told CBC News.
“Employees have demanded the reorganization of work so that their personal lives can be greater,” said Palier.
“I have a noisy way of saying that there is a revolution in the works.”
The war may tilt Macron’s way
The most direct beneficiary of the stand-off is the country’s far-right movement and parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen.
one new poll showing that it has gained five points since the start of the protest – despite the populist message of its National Rally having been strongly anti-union in the past. The polls suggest the same Le Pen is now in the best position to replace Macron when his second term expires in 2027 and he is barred from running again.
However, while the Supreme Court’s ruling will play a major role in determining the future of pension reform, there are unmistakable signs that the battle may be slowly tilting Macron’s way.
While supporters and opponents may disagree on the numbers, the crowds were smaller than previous public strikes in March.
Many union employees who participated in previous protests, including the majority of teachers, chose to stay on the job rather than attend the protest and lose a day’s pay. The union representing garbage collectors also called off a three-week strike that left the streets of Paris with mountains of uncollected garbage. There were also fewer incidents of violence between police and protesters on Tuesday than before.
Borne also offered to meet with representatives of the eight powerful unions before the next round of national strikes, called for April 6 – an offer he accepted.
But on the streets, the most ardent opponents vowed to continue the challenge until Macron withdrew the law in its entirety.
“If there are enough blocks (of the economy) that even CEOs, company leaders begin to tell Macron, ‘it’s useless, we lose a lot, a lot of chaos’ – the only way to do it is to stop him,” said Kadeyan.
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