For the 14th time this year, thousands of French protested across the country against the controversial pension reform on Tuesday. There were strikes and demonstrations in many cities, air traffic was more severely affected, rail transport hardly at all. This time, significantly fewer people took part in the protests, it said on television. Around 11,000 police officers and gendarmes were on duty to, as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin put it somewhat cynically, “to ensure the security of the demonstrations and to guarantee the right to demonstrate”.
As on all previous occasions, protesters took to the media to vent their anger at the rising retirement age from 62 to 64. They have worked hard all their lives, some say, feel “worn out” and now the government is taking two years of their pension away from them. Many are also still angry that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne passed the reform past Parliament because she did not have a sufficient majority behind her. They feel disrespected by the government.
In France there are again demonstrations against the controversial pension reform. Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron is traveling around the country to present his policies.
(Photo: Ludovic Marin /AFP)
Opposition to Macron’s pension reform could change
The protesters know that their efforts are actually in vain as far as the goal is concerned. The reform is law and is scheduled to come into force in September. The first two decrees for implementation were published on Sunday. Members of President Emmanuel Macron’s party reiterate that the issue is politically through. Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, disagrees: “The president is wrong if he thinks that this is over in people’s minds. That’s not true. They’re not done with it.” However, Berger admitted that this was probably the last day of action of this kind. “The match comes to an end.” The resistance will take other forms.
For the time being, he lives on in Parliament. This Thursday, the small opposition Liot faction will try again. It’s the day of her “parliamentary niche” when she can set the agenda herself. The centrist group introduces legislation that would overturn the higher retirement age. The advance has been murmured in Paris for weeks; Liot brought the government to the brink of collapse in April with an almost successful motion of no confidence. It is questionable whether there will be a vote on the proposal, which is supported by the far left and far right and parts of the conservative Republicans.
The government camp takes the attack seriously and will probably fight it with reference to Article 40 of the constitution. He bans proposals aimed at “deteriorating public revenues”. Macron supporters call the proposed law “irresponsible”, also because France was recently downgraded to “AA-” by the rating agency Fitch. In the justification Fitch had referred to the “strong social tensions” surrounding the pension reform, the country was stuck in a “political impasse”.
New figures on tax justice are heating up the debate
Meanwhile, Macron himself is out and about in the country to present his policies: fighting forest fires, improving education, strengthening defense and bringing about “green re-industrialization”. It’s all part of his plan, announced in a television interview in mid-April, to “pacify” the country within 100 days of the pension dispute. On the national holiday, July 14, he wants to take stock. At half time it can be said that he has half achieved his goal. On the one hand, the number of participants in the protests has recently fallen significantly and its popularity rating has increased slightly: from 25 to a still low 29 percent.
On the other hand, many government projects are blocked in the National Assembly. The next four weeks would be politically “sporty,” said Stéphane Séjourné (Renaissance), one of Macron’s oldest companions, on Tuesday. The government does not have a majority in parliament, which is a “hard lesson” for French politics. “We are still in the process of establishing a new political culture. It is difficult for us to make compromises, to form coalitions.”
The social debate was also heated up on Tuesday with new figures on tax justice, a hot topic in France at all times. According to a study by the Institut des Politiques Publiques, the super-rich hardly pay any taxes. The effective tax rate of the very richest in the country therefore falls with the size of their wealth, for the top 0.1 percent it is just 26.2 percent. In other words: the richer, the less burden. According to the authors of the study, the reason is that most billionaires are major shareholders in companies, which has less of an impact on taxes. If their assets were taxed as progressively as the legislator actually intended, the tax rate would be just under 60 percent. The data is from 2016, i.e. before Macron’s reign.