President Emmanuel Macron has given himself “a hundred days” to mend his broken rapport with the French, aiming for a rebound after a gruelling 100-day pension battle that has roiled the nation, infuriated millions, and deepened a crisis in French democracy.
The president’s latest reboot was, as expected, vintage Macron: the solemn tone striving for empathy, the talk of “better sharing wealth”, a reference to Napoleon’s “Hundred Days”, topped off by a parallel with the resurrection of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
The image conveyed by the Paris landmark’s dizzying spire was perhaps an odd choice for a president facing chronic accusations of “vertical” governing, but contrition is not part of his repertoire.
“Never let go, such is my motto,” Macron said last week on a visit to Notre-Dame, stressing that he is on track to deliver on a pledge – widely mocked at the time – to repair the fire-stricken cathedral “within five years”.
His refusal to let go, or indeed give an inch, in the face of overwhelming opposition to his pension reform has left the country mired in a deep political crisis. It has handed the French president a Pyrrhic victory that now threatens to hamper the rest of his mandate.
In his primetime televised address on Monday night, Macron said he had “heard people’s anger” over his deeply unpopular push to raise France’s minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, while insisting that it was needed to keep the pension system afloat. He announced “100 days of appeasement, unity, ambition and action for France”, leading up to “Bastille Day” on July 14, France’s national holiday.
Even as he spoke, crowds of protesters gathered outside town halls across France, banging pots and pans in a bid to drown out the speech – under the rallying cry: “Macron won’t listen to us? We won’t listen to him!”
‘Promises already heard’
In the run-up to Monday’s address, an Elabe poll found that only 10% of respondents believed Macron’s words could “appease” the French public. The stark figure underscored the extend of public resentment and loss of faith in the president, said Antoine Bristielle, a public opinion expert at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a Paris-based think-tank.
“Macron is widely seen as a smooth talker who ultimately does as he pleases,” Bristielle explained. “He could have reopened the pension debate or addressed the democratic concerns it has raised, but he chose to skip both subjects instead.”
In his 14-minute address, Macron dwelled less than two minutes on the festering debate that has roiled France for the past three months, triggering its biggest protest movement in several decades. Eager to turn the page, he announced negotiations on “key issues” like improving employees’ income, better sharing wealth and improving working conditions, including for older workers. While giving scant details about his roadmap, he promised “concrete solutions to improve daily life” for the most disadvantaged.
“Promises already seen, already heard,” read an editorial in the right-wing Le Figaro, noting that Macron’s latest reboot sounded much like his past pledges to “change method” – and that his rhetoric had been “devitalised by endless promises and U-turns”.
“The ‘hundred days’ generally refer to the dynamism and euphoria that come with the start of a mandate,” Le Monde wrote in its editorial on Tuesday, stressing that it was “manifestly not the case” with France’s increasingly unpopular president.
Several commentators drew mocking parallels with Napoleon’s Hundred Days, noting that the emperor’s last campaign led to his final defeat at Waterloo. Others stressed the scant detail Macron offered on his roadmap.
His words “rang hollow”, said Éric Fassin, a professor of sociology at Paris 8 University, describing the president’s statements as an attempt to divert attention from the bitter pension battle.
“Macron rolled out a political platform as though he were an incoming president – and not someone who has governed for the past six years,” he explained. “His announcements served one purpose: to say, ‘let’s look ahead, and not talk about what just happened’.”
‘Macron says he hears the anger – but he is deaf to what it says’
The French president has repeatedly rejected talk of a “democratic crisis” since his government used a slew of special constitutional powers to push his pension reform through parliament and ultimately ram it through without a vote.
The move was validated last week by France’s Constitutional Council, which ruled that the government had bent the rules without breaking them – a decision many legal experts said would only aggravate the imbalance between the executive and legislative branches of government.
Macron’s refusal to acknowledge an imbalance in the institutions of the Fifth Republic is indicative of his disconnect with the public, said Fassin. He pointed to a recent Viavoice survey published by left-leaning Libération, in which 76% of respondents said French democracy was in a “poor state”.
“More than three quarters of the French say democracy is in crisis, but for Macron what happened was constitutionally acceptable and therefore justified,” Fassin said. “Macron says he hears the anger – but he is deaf to what it says.”
Macron’s minority government is hardly the first to use the special executive powers granted by Article 49.3 of the French constitution, which has been triggered 100 times since 1962. Seldom, however, has it been used to ram through a reform of such scope and so vehemently rejected by the public.
Its use “remains a stain on this whole process and on Macron more broadly”, said Joseph Downing, a senior lecturer in politics at Aston University in Britain, though arguing that the president’s reformist legacy will be viewed “more kindly” in years to come.
“He did override the democratic process, he did bypass the legislature because he was worried he would lose a vote,” Downing added. “He did so legally, but he will be seen as someone who is ready to sacrifice French democracy to force through his vision of France.”
Widespread rejection of the president’s pension plans was a key factor in his failure to win a parliamentary majority following his re-election last year. His decision to bypass parliament, and ignore the millions who marched in protest, has exacerbated a crisis of representative democracy in France, added Bristielle.
“People cannot understand why a bill that is so overwhelmingly rejected by voters would be forced through anyway,” he explained. “This disconnect with the popular will is no longer acceptable. Voters are no longer content with delegating power for five years.”
Minority rule
In addition to alienating swathes of the public, Macron’s coup de force has enraged and antagonised a united front of trade unions, blown up the last remaining bridges with the left, and highlighted the government’s inability to build a dependable alliance with the rump of the conservative camp.
The bitter pension battle appears to have weakened every political camp save the far right – precisely the one Macron was elected to keep at bay.
Having lost its majority in parliament, the government needs to get support from lawmakers from diverse political forces to push ahead with its legislative agenda. Prior to the fracas over pensions, it had enjoyed a measure of success in navigating the challenges of minority rule, relying on support from opposition lawmakers – occasionally from the left, more often from the right – to pass legislation in a deeply divided National Assembly.
Pursuing such cooperation is likely to be an uphill task in the current uproarious climate of protest. Opponents from across the board said Macron's speech on Monday had only reinforced concerns about how the reform was handled.
“He chose to turn his back on the French and ignore their suffering,” said far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, while the left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Macron was “totally out of touch with reality”. More troublingly for the president, conservative leader Éric Ciotti, who supported the pension reform, dismissed the speech as a “catalogue of pious wishes”, adding that Macron's “method had clearly not changed”.
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Flooding the airwaves on Tuesday, government ministers touted a flurry of proposed reforms including a “Marshall Plan for France’s middle classes”. But finding partners in the opposition will be a tall order “such is their reluctance to work with Macron”, said Bristielle, noting that unions will be even more reluctant to engage with the president after the bruising pension battle.
Having been ignored by Macron for months, France’s unions have in turn spurned his invitation for talks at the Élysée Palace. Laurent Berger, the head of the moderate CFDT union, France’s largest, noted that the president had “not uttered a word” on easing tensions in his televised address.
“The CFDT was relatively close to the positions espoused by Macron when he first ran for president in 2017, but the dialogue has been severed for now,” said Bristielle, noting that Berger’s union had been singled out for criticism by Macron during the tussle over pensions.
“That battle has rattled the union’s rank and file,” he added. “They will be deeply reluctant to accept defeat and resume talks with a president that abused them.”
