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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS: Macron secures pension victory but gloom deepens in France

President Emmanuel Macron looks to have won his battle to push through a widely unpopular pension reform, but many experts and historians believe he has now deepened the gloom enveloping French democracy.

Published: 15 April 2023 11:40 CEST

French President Emmanuel Macron prior to speech

President Emmanuel Macron looks to have won his battle to push through a widely unpopular pension reform, but the move may have triggered a democratic crisis. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

France’s constitutional court approved the core parts of Macron’s pension reform on Friday, paving the way for the centrist head of state to sign into law a hike in the retirement age to 64 from its current level of 62.

But the manner in which the legislation has been passed – in the face of opposition from two out of three voters, trade unions, and a majority of MPs in the National Assembly – has dismayed even previously sympathetic observers.

Pierre Rosanvallon, a highly respected sociologist and historian, issued a striking warning in early April that Macron needed to restore the legitimacy of his presidential office in the eyes of voters.

“Without this, the time of revolutions could come back, or else there will be an accumulation of toxic disaffection which will open the way for far-right populism,” the centre-left thinker told Liberation newspaper.

Political historian Jean Garrigues also wrote that it was “all of our institutional foundations, all of our political figures which are discredited” by the way the reform had been passed.

“The link between our citizens and their national representatives has been stretched further in this crisis, as it was during the Yellow Vests,” Garrigues wrote in Le Monde newspaper, referring to fierce anti-Macron protests in 2018.

Protests in France look set to continue after President Macron signed his controversial pension reform into law on Saturday. Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Criticism has focused in particular on how the president’s minority government rammed the legislation through parliament on March 16 without a vote.

The move – legal but controversial – came after other constitutional measures were used to keep parliamentary debate to a minimum, deepening the sense of outrage felt by protesters who have taken to the streets almost every week since January.

The sometimes violent protests peaked at 1.28 million people on March 7th, according to official statistics, the biggest in a generation.

“This protest movement will leave a mark in the history of our country, through its size and the new people who have joined in,” the leader of the moderate CFDT union, Laurent Berger, told reporters as he marched – for the 12th time since January – on Thursday.

He repeated his belief that the country faced a “democratic crisis.”

“No crisis”

In his only media interview on the subject of pensions since his election to a second term last April, Macron conceded that he and his government had failed to win the battle for public opinion.

Asked if he had any regrets, he told the TF1 channel: “If I have any, it’s that we haven’t always succeeded in convincing people of the necessity of this reform, which I don’t take pleasure in.”

But he remained convinced that it was “necessary” and for the greater good of the country – to avoid pension deficits forecast to hit 13.5 billion euros by 2030, and to bring the country into line with its EU neighbours.

Furthermore, he saw it as legitimate given that he had been re-elected on a platform that included the pension reform and a pledge to make France “work more” to pay for one of the most expensive welfare systems in the world.

Some allies had warned him beforehand, however, about the risks of hiking the retirement age in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and so soon after Covid-19.

Macron shot back at critics during his visit to China last week, saying that his pension reform had been “proposed democratically”. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Speaking in China last week, he shot back at critics.

“You can’t call it a democratic crisis when an elected president […] seeks to implement a policy that has been proposed democratically,” he told reporters in off-the-record remarks that were published in the French media.

“If people wanted to retire at 60, then they shouldn’t have elected me as president.”

A new republic?

The talk of crisis and revolution comes amid gathering evidence that confidence in French democracy is waning.

A widely watched annual poll published by the Cevipof political institute at Sciences Po university in Paris showed in February that two out of three people (64 percent) thought French democracy was functioning “not well”.

An even higher proportion had negative feelings about politicians (72 percent) and still more (82 percent) thought politicians did not share their priorities.

The pensions reform has also revived debate about whether the current constitution, the foundation of the modern Fifth Republic, is fit for purpose.

Approved during a national emergency and shaped by war-time hero Charles de Gaulle, it created an executive presidency with powers superior to any other western European chancellory or prime minister’s office.

“This constitution which hands extremely brutal, authoritarian powers to the governing power is crashing into a society that no longer tolerates decisions seen as too top-down,” said constitutional expert Bastian Francois.

“What was acceptable in the 60s, even in the 80s, is less and less acceptable today,” the historian at the Sorbonne university in Paris told AFP.

By AFP’s Adam Plowright

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.