Resisting opposition, Macron wants pension plan executed by end of year
PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron is stubbornly resisting growing discontent on the streets of France, saying on Wednesday that the pension bill he pushed through without a vote in parliament to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 must be implemented by the end of the year.
After his interview broadcast on national television, critics attacked Macron describing him as “self-satisfied,” “out of touch” and “offensive.”
Some suggested that the president is playing with fire amid strikes and daily demonstrations, some leading to clashes with police. Unions have called for nationwide protests on Thursday that are likely to further raise tensions.
“He is in absolute denial,” said Olivier Faure, the head of the Socialist Party. It’s as though “there’s a well lit fire and he is pouring jerrycans of gas on the flames.”
The president’s remarks were his first since the government finally forced the pension bill through parliament last week, then survived two no-confidence votes in the lower chamber of parliament Monday.
France’s Constitutional Council will review the bill in the coming weeks, and it can only be turned into law after the body gives its approval.
The 45-year-old centrist president, in his second and final term, repeatedly said he was convinced that France’s retirement system needed to be modified to keep it financed.
“That reform is not a luxury, it is not fun. It’s a necessity for the country,” he said, while conceding that “we must listen to (its opponents), listen to their anger and respond to it.”
As he spoke, dockers in Marseille, garbage workers in Paris striking for a 17th day and energy workers at a Normandy refinery were among those refusing to work and setting up blockades.
A partial disruption of fuel shipments due to blocked refineries in Normandy and southern France led to shortages at gas stations, notably in the southeast. while rubbish piled up in Paris despite a police order for minimal service.
As a protest in northern Paris degenerated, riot police surged forward, trying to corral rowdy demonstrators down a side street.
Macron made a distinction in his interview between the union-organized protests he views as legitimate and the small, mobile groups setting fire to garbage bags and bins that end in confrontations with police.
Unions, opposition politicians and other opponents insist they want the retirement measure withdrawn.
Workers blocking a waste management plant in Issy-lesMoulineaux, outside Paris, watched the president’s interview with disappointment.
“We will carry on the resistance,” Frédéric Probel, local leader of the leftist CGT union, said. “It’s not that (workers) don’t want to work,” he said, adding, “So what is the message? We must resist.”