As France’s constitutional council debated the legality of Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform last week, massed ranks of riot police stood by in central Paris. It was an unsettling sign of the times. Mr Macron’s reckless decision to use executive powers to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 – avoiding a parliamentary vote he thought he might lose – has turned a highly charged national debate into a wider crisis of democratic legitimacy. On Friday, the nine members of the great and the good who make up the council found themselves at the eye of the storm.
Following the court’s verdict that the reform is constitutionally sound, Mr Macron will hope to draw a line and move on. On Friday evening, his embattled prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, optimistically tweeted: “The law has reached the end of its democratic process.” That may technically be true, but the political reality is very different.
Though the council rejected an opposition proposal for a citizens’ referendum on the retirement age, a second request is yet to be adjudicated upon. And after three months of nationwide demonstrations and strikes, France’s reinvigorated unions have vowed to fight on; Labour Day protests on 1 May are certain to be large, possibly presaging a summer of discontent. The disquiet caused by Mr Macron’s strong-arm tactics has left him with little or no political capital, only a year into his second term. With personal approval ratings nearing record lows, and hamstrung by his lack of a majority in the National Assembly, he looks like a lame‑duck president.
So much for Mr Macron’s diminished prospects. By far the most serious damage done has been that inflicted on the French body politic. The president’s haughty mishandling of the pensions controversy has deepened mistrust in mainstream political institutions, to the likely benefit of Marine Le Pen and the French far right. Soaring rates of abstention at elections – especially among young people – already testified to a widespread alienation amid declining living standards, as did the gilets jaunes insurgency during Mr Macron’s first term. The violent targeting of public buildings and officials during the pension protests, and Ms Le Pen’s insidious attacks on the integrity of the constitutional court, should be ringing loud alarm bells.
Mr Macron’s supporters will point to the council’s ruling, which confirmed the president was within his rights to double down on the reform. But taking that option despite opposition from two-thirds of the population, and deep concern in his own party, was needlessly provocative and rash. The result is a crisis of consent that is likely to find new forms of expression, with unpredictable consequences. As the International Monetary Fund warns that the global economy is heading for the weakest period of growth for 30 years, and the challenge posed by the climate emergency becomes ever more pressing, political leaders should be seeking to work with, rather than ignore, their electorates. But despite pledges to “listen” after previous setbacks, the president has brazenly reverted to Jupiterian type.
Mr Macron’s remarkable journey to the Élysée in 2017 was achieved on the back of popular disillusionment with “establishment” politics. Six years on, he symbolises the failings of the over-centralised, top-down system he pledged to reform. As calls for democratic renewal grow louder, including the greater use of referendums, proportional voting and citizens’ assemblies, the case for reviewing the quasi‑monarchical powers of the French presidency looks compelling. Mr Macron could usefully use the remainder of his second term to kickstart that process. French voters won’t hold their breath.
