French President Emmanuel Macron is facing yet more strikes against his push to reform the country’s pension system on Thursday, a day after he insisted he won’t back down and likened protesters to the rebels who stormed the US Capitol.
(Bloomberg) — French President Emmanuel Macron is facing yet more strikes against his push to reform the country’s pension system on Thursday, a day after he insisted he won’t back down and likened protesters to the rebels who stormed the US Capitol.
Public transportation, schools and refineries are expected to be impacted as anger over the overhaul shows no sign of receding more than two months after unions began a series of walkouts and marches.
Rail operator SNCF predicted severe disruption, with half of high-speed services expected to run and as few as one-in-five commuter trains operating in the French capital. Paris subway company RATP said services would be reduced on most lines and urged customers to work from home where possible.
France’s DGAC civil aviation authority has asked airlines to extend flight cuts at several airports, leading to a 30% capacity drop at Paris-Orly and a 20% reduction at Marseille-Provence, Toulouse-Blagnac and Lyon-Saint Exupéry.
Macron said Wednesday that his reform was needed for the sake of public finances. In a television interview, he further stoked outrage on the streets and on social media when he compared protesters to those who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and those who invaded the Brazilian parliament last year. His mistake was that he didn’t manage to convince the French people, he said.
The government “cannot accept rebels and factions,” the president said.
Polls suggest most French people oppose Macron’s plan to raise the minimum retirement age by two years to 64, backing labor unions, which are especially critical of the decision to use a constitutional provision that allowed him to bypass a vote in the National Assembly.
A Harris Interactive survey of 1,100 adults carried out on March 17-20 for Challenges magazine shows 61% consider it legitimate to pursue strikes after he resorted to the so-called Article 49.3.
However, even among those who want Macron to give up on his plan, there’s little hope that he’ll change course. A survey of 1,007 adults carried out by pollster Ifop on March 21-22 for Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper showed 79% think the government won’t abandon the reform in the face of further protests.
Changing Behavior
Olivier Marleix, the head of the conservative Republicans in the lower house of parliament, urged Macron on Wednesday to start talks with unions, adding that while he backed the gist of the pension reform, the president should “change his behavior.”
Macron, who has repeatedly pledged he would change his ruling style to better include grassroots forces, has seen his popularity sink to the lowest level since the Yellow Vest protests in early 2019, according to an Ifop poll published Sunday in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, with a 28% satisfaction rate.
Demonstrations have burst out sporadically since Monday, with hundreds of people arrested this week according to the Interior Ministry. Around one-tenth of gas stations in France are running out of at least one type of fuel, according to Agence-France Presse. The most visible sign of the movement is perhaps garbage piling up on the streets of Paris.
Macron has so far ruled out snap elections, reshuffling his government or amending the reform to quell tensions.
“We aren’t seeing any attempt or dream to gain power or to change the government: It’s an opposition movement,” said Michel Wieviorka, a French sociologist who has worked on social movements. “There’s thirst for democracy and opposition to a world organized by technocrats, and anger from the feeling of being despised.”
(Adds poll results in ninth paragraph.)
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