Macron faces anger over pension plan
PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron is facing a crucial test this week as the battle over his unpopular plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is set to reach a peak in the streets and at parliament, deepening a widely shared feeling that he doesn’t hear the grievances of the French.
The 45- year- old probusiness centrist has put his legacy on the line with his pension reform plans, central to his vision for making the French economy more competitive. But he may have to force it through parliament, which would damage his democratic credentials and further enrage those who are opposing it.
France’s trade unions have called for an eighth round of nationwide protests on Wednesday. On the same day, the bill heads to a committee of seven senators and seven lower- house lawmakers as part of the complex legislative process. Open-ended strikes have been disrupting some refineries, train traffic across the country and garbage collection in Paris.
In a letter last week to unions, Macron reiterated his views, insisting on the need for raising the retirement age in order to make the French pension system financially sustainable in the coming years.
If the parliamentary committee reaches an accord on Wednesday, the text is expected to be submitted to a vote in both the Senate and the National Assembly the next day. However, the outcome in the lower house, where Macron’s centrist alliance lost its majority last year, is hard to predict.
If the government considers the risk too high that the bill would be rejected, it could use a special constitutional power that would force the pension reform through without a vote.
According to political analyst Brice Teinturier, deputy director- general of the Ipsos polling institute, such a move “would appear as brutal and would increase people’s sense that it is an unfair measure imposed from above.”
The government acknowledged a vote is the favored option, because it would provide more legitimacy to the pension plan.
Opinion polls show that a majority of people oppose the reform, and at the same time that they “have in mind the idea that … Macron will pass his law, whatever it costs,” Teinturier stressed. “Yet it doesn’t mean that they are resigned … The resentment and anger remain intact.”