Macron wins Pyrrhic victory on pension bill, risks fuelling anger

Paris: President Emmanuel Macron’s move to shun the National Assembly and push through an unpopular pension system overhaul without a vote in the lower house may secure a reform he says is needed for France’s finances. But it may end up a Pyrrhic victory.

By using special constitutional powers instead of risking lawmakers rejecting the reform, Macron has given ammunition to the opposition and to trade union leaders who cast the reform as undemocratic.

It could also right’s hands.

“It’s a democratic coup,” farright leader Marine Le Pen told reporters after a chaotic session in parliament, where Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was booed as she announced that the government would invoke article 49.3 of the constitution allowing it to pass the legislation without a vote.

Despite a series of costly sweeteners, the government concluded it had failed to garner enough votes from conservative lawmakers in the lower house to ensure passage for its plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62.

Once known as a high-stakes political gambler, Macron chose to play it safe. play into the far

He was too concerned about the broader financial implications to risk jeopardising a reform meant to reassure investors and ratings agencies about French debt sustainability, a government source said.

However, weeks of in parliament heated debates and street protests drawing over 1 million people risked leaving a toxic legacy that could boost far-right populists, analysts said.

“This reform has all the ingredients to boost votes for parties on the radical right,” said Bruno Palier, a political scientist at French university Sciences-Po.

Palier said bearing the brunt of the reform would be the lower middle-class, a segment of the population that already felt like it was the loser of globalisation, as it did in Britain before Brexit and in the United States before Donald Trump’s election.

- Reuters