SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘He doesn’t listen’: Macron’s method stirs anger of French protesters

As teargas and smoke wafted through the streets of central Paris and riot police clashed with protesters, many demonstrators felt President Emmanuel Macron only had himself to blame for the seething public anger over his pension reform.

'He doesn't listen': Macron's method stirs anger of French protesters
Protestors hold an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron, during a demonstration against the government's proposed pensions overhaul in Paris (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

Among the crowd of tens of thousands of mostly young people, protesters said Macron’s defiance and abrasive ruling style had motivated them to hit the streets.

Chief among the complaints was his decision last Thursday to ram the pensions legislation through parliament without a vote after it emerged that his minority government did not have enough support among MPs.

The move was legal — it is possible under article 49.3 of the constitution — but has been decried by critics as an abuse of executive power.

People take part in a demonstration, a week after the government pushed a pensions reform through parliament without a vote, using the article 49.3 of the constitution, in Paris on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

“There’s the substance — the reform of the pension system — and then there’s the other issue of how democracy functions,” 21-year-old student Judicael Juge told AFP.

“And I think that is more of a source of anger now than the substance.”

Opinion polls also show that around two-thirds of French people are against the reform.

Others felt Macron had been provocative in a television interview on Wednesday when he questioned French people’s attitude to work and pledged to implement the pension changes by the end of the year.

“I was wondering whether to come and whether all this was worth it,” Solange Le Nuz, a 28-year-old engineer, who had taken the afternoon off to attend the protests, told AFP.

“That’s what made my mind up,” she said, referring to the president’s TV interview. “I found him very authoritarian. He doesn’t listen.”

A poll carried out after Macron’s interview by the Odoxa group found that 76 percent of respondents were not convinced by the president, and 83 percent thought unrest and protests would worsen in coming days.

A total of 70 percent felt the government was to blame for nightly clashes around the country since last Thursday, as well as wildcat protests that have seen roads, railways stations and ports blocked.

People take part in a demonstration in Paris on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

‘Hope he realises’

The crowd in Paris marched from Place de la Bastille, a memorial to revolutionary France, to the city’s historic opera house in the centre of the capital.

Though peaceful to begin with, police repeatedly clashed with violent protesters from around 5pm (1600 GMT), firing teargas and carrying out baton charges on the Grands Boulevards thoroughfare and near the opera house.

Similar scenes were reported in other cities around the country, including Rennes, Nantes and Bordeaux.

Although Thursday was the ninth round of union-organised protests since January, school assistant Clementine Lebeigle, 24, said she had decided to join in for the first time.

“They went against the people in the Assembly. They didn’t have the votes,” she said as she waited to join the march in Paris.

“I find it outrageous that they did that while knowing that people were demonstrating. It’s abusive. He’s not listening to us,” she told AFP, referring to Macron.

Alice Jupil-Le Bras, also 24 and a student, called the use of article 49.3 a “disgrace for the government. It’s an assault on the population.”

Macron has justified the move, saying the constitutional measure had been used 100 times previously in modern French history.

Under the terms of the article, the government faces a no-confidence motion afterwards — which Macron’s government survived on Monday by nine votes.

As the country faces another cycle of violence, just four years after the so-called “Yellow Vest” movement against Macron shook the country, few people could see how it would end.

Many hoped Macron might still withdraw the reform, which is intended to be a flagship policy of his second term in office.

He has defended it as essential to reduce budget deficits forecast for the years ahead.

“I hope he reverses the 49.3. I don’t think he will, but I hope so,” said Lebeigle. “I hope he realises. It’s crazy how many people are in the street.”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

POLITICS

French far right leader says party ‘ready’ to govern

French far-right leader Jordan Bardella said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues ahead of the country's most divisive election in decades.

French far right leader says party ‘ready’ to govern

“In three words: we are ready,” the 28-year-old  president of the Rassemblement National (RN) told a press conference as he unveiled his party’s programme.

President Emmanuel Macron threw France into turmoil earlier this month by calling the snap election after his centrist party was trounced by RN in a European vote.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

Bardella, credited with helping the RN clean up its extremist image, has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, ‘restore order’ and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for foreigners born on French soil to gain citizenship.

“It’s been 30 years the French have not been listened to on this subject,” he said.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on ‘realistic’ measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops into Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He said his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be ‘extremely vigilant’ in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist New Popular Front, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI).

The New Popular Front has so far refused to publicly declare its candidate for prime minister if it wins, with several key figures urging the polarising LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon to step back.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the ‘patriotic and republican’ choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

FLI, which vocally opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, strongly denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire spectacularly if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

Marine Le Pen, the RN’s figurehead who is bidding to succeed him as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns and change course.

“The goal cannot be to just continue as things were,” Macron said in an open letter in French media.

He has urged the French not to make the election a referendum on his leadership, saying it is not, ‘a vote of confidence in the president of the republic’.

On Tuesday, Macron’s prime minister Gabriel Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella in a TV debate.

SHOW COMMENTS