Balancing the Budget: Macron’s Debt to the French Working Class
Photo portrait of French President, Emmanuel Macron. Photo by Faces Of The World.
“Macron thinks of himself as a kind of king, Jupiter up high looking down on us. We’ve got to hold out until he listens,” said a trade union member protesting French President Macron’s latest pension reform. As fires rage among crowds of impassioned pleas, electricity blackouts darken the country, and garbage bags pile up on the streets of Paris, President Macron has remained unyielding on his proposals while his country teeters on the edge of political crisis.
On Thursday, March 16, as French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne took to the podium to address the French Parliament, some lawmakers broke out singing La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. Others clamored in opposition, interrupting her entirely in a dramatic spectacle of political defiance. It was the moment lawmakers feared: the employment of Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which allows bills to be pushed forth into the Senate without Parliament’s vote. For months, President Macron has made clear his intention to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 over a period of seven years and to change eligibility requirements for receiving a full pension payment. Around 73% of French people disapprove of the pension reform. To justify his deeply unpopular proposals, Macron has branded it as the only solution to prevent a collapse of France’s pension system, which has been projected to run a deficit in the face of a rapidly aging population and low birth rate. Now, thanks to Article 49.3, the pension bill is law. While Borne promised there would be “a proper vote” and parliamentary democracy would “have the last say,” the employment of Article 49.3 by Macron’s government undermines the role of parliamentary democracy in this process.
Though constitutional, Macron’s decision to employ Article 49.3 to further such a divisive proposal has called into question Macron’s legitimacy, the strength of his political alliances, and his devotion to the people of France. The circumvention of parliamentary procedure after months of public dissent displays the ever growing distance between Macron and the French working class, a faction that has always been headstrong regarding their labor rights, zealously protecting them throughout history. In 1995, when then President Jacques Chirac attempted to reform the pension system, workers united in solidarity to protest the changes. Chirac decided to give into union concessions after the threat of indefinite protests continued to loom. In 2019, when Macron tried to enforce a points-based pension plan that would give equal contributions equal benefits—in turn, creating the greatest benefit for the wealthiest citizens—people gathered en masse to resist. The importance of labor rights for the French working class is clear, and yet Macron has turned a blind eye.
Instead, Macron’s overconfidence and arrogance is to blame for his uncompromising attitude on pension reform. His insistence that the French people must “work longer,” perpetuating the French “laziness” myth, has earned him his title as “The President of the Rich.” In one of his most controversial moments, upon seeing a homeless man, Macron suggested that all the man had to do was cross the street to find work. Yet, despite criticism of the French working class’s laziness and their mandated 35-hour work week, French productivity is higher than its European counterparts and they work more hours, on average, than the reputedly laborious Germans. Macron’s detachment from the working class’ issues is no new phenomenon, but part of his strategy to guide his big business agenda.
A 2022 report from the Pensions Advisory Council, demonstrated that pension funds would substantially decline from 2023 to 2027, but would break even once more, without any action, by the mid-2030s. A temporary collapse of the pension system is an impending threat, yet between Macron’s proposed business tax cuts and exemptions in the current pension contribution system, it is no wonder that the deficit is in need of rectification. Disregarding his own role in reducing France’s finances for social programs, Macron has made a decision for the French working class without their consent. His preferential agenda for growing business and corporate wealth comes at the cost of France’s strong-willed working class, a demographic with which he seems to have lost all touch.
After Macron’s government narrowly dodged a vote of no confidence on March 20, the protests continue to grow more tense with an inundation of arbitrary arrest accusations, excessive police violence, and sexual assault by law enforcement. The political left that had rallied behind Macron in his past election out of fear of conservative National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, has now taken to the streets to remind the president that he vowed to serve all of France. The youth who entrusted Macron, despite not agreeing with his policies, expressed uncertainties over wealth inequality and the future of French democracy given the stretch of executive powers to pass an unjust pension bill. Macron highlights the urgent need to balance the budget and prevent a deficit, but at what cost?
Macron has shown a tendency to belittle the needs of his working class constituents, those to which he is indebted for his position, and has eroded public trust in democracy. Given that he is either unwilling or unable to see alternative solutions, Macron has not only violated the political will of the French working class and Parliament, but decided that French democracy and the spirit of its labor is expendable. Instead of solely focusing on the financial debt he has run into, perhaps Macron ought to consider his debts to the working people of France.
Fiza Rizvi (CC ‘24) is a Staff Writer for CPR and is studying computer science. She is primarily interested in international affairs and national security.