Different expert analyses make it hard to evaluate the extent of the current French crisis and its course. There is consensus, if not unanimity, that there is widespread and persistent public opposition to the pension reform bill that would increase the retirement age.
The current crisis was brought on by the pension bill, as well as widespread opposition to the way it was passed. According to Article 49:3 of the constitution, the government may instruct the National Assembly to either pass this bill without amendment or overthrow the government. In the event of a government overthrow, the president will likely call for new elections for the legislature after dissolving parliament.
Some in the opposition are worried about going back to the voters; so, they did not vote to overthrow the government despite their objections to the bill. There is also a general agreement, which may or may not be justified, that President Emmanuel Macron’s handling of the crisis exemplified the usual level of recklessness, with most of his few statements serving to further inflame the situation.
Disagreement in the analyses centers on how the protests, acts of violence, and development of the crisis are being analyzed. Some people think that the protests are widespread and “cross classes and generations”, meaning they are uniting people of different socioeconomic statuses and generations. Others assume the million or million and a half protesters all belong to the same group and that the vast majority of people don’t bother to show up to the demonstrations. A third camp believes that the momentum of the protests has waned over time, while a fourth camp maintains that it is too soon to draw any firm conclusions about the crisis’s continuation or end.
Some believe the increasing number of violent incidents demonstrates the growing hostility and radicalism of the demonstrators. Others argue that the violence is meaningless because it only involves a small fraction of the total demonstrators (less than 10,000 at most), all of whom are members of the far-left “black bloc” and other extremist groups on the far left and right, and there is no sign of a change in the behavior of the vast majority of the demonstrators. In addition, some contend that the president’s interests are served by the acts of violence because they terrify the vast majority of protesters and the populace, portray him as a champion of stability and social peace, a defender of property and private property, and a guarantee of the safety of peaceful protestors.
However, there are those who sound the alarm about this analysis, pointing out that recent polls show an unprecedented rise in the number of people who either justify or approve of violence directed at the state. The vast majority of people, including a resounding majority of young people, now hold this opinion, and some people accuse the media of hypocrisying and promoting it given the high prevalence of extreme leftists among media employees.
Experts point out that despite Macron’s penchant for holding the stick upside down and considering this to be the pinnacle of intelligence, he has made statements and taken positions condemning police violence, even though, with few exceptions, the police are the victims. It has been reported that the ruling party was soundly defeated in elections held in a constituency just last week. Public opinion surveys show that the president and the ruling parties do not have the power to dissolve parliament.
These polls predict that the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen (far right) and La France Insoumise of Jean-Luc Melenchon (far left) will receive a combined 52 percent of the vote (26 percent for both) before the ruling coalition — which consists of Macron’s party and parties that support him — which receives only 22 percent.
This means that, unless he is successful in reaching an agreement with an opposition party, the president will be forced to deal with a national assembly in which his supporters have only a relative majority. However, there is currently no indication of the possibility of this happening because the president lacks sufficient flexibility and no party is interested in supporting a leader who is despised by the majority of the populace. We do not rule out this possibility if Macron, in an uncharacteristic move, manages to convince an opposition party that its gains justify its support for him.
Reform of the Pension System
To be objective, we must admit that the pension system’s incapacity and demographic changes, including the high proportion of elderly people, their improved health, and the low birthrate, necessitated the pension reform. The reform was extremely sluggish, and the debt reached a worrisome new high as a result of how the Covid-19 crisis was handled. Since the French public completely opposes raising the retirement age for the stated reason that the state steals two years of people’s lives, as well as for deeper reasons that we will discuss later, it is necessary for us to be objective and say that the dialogue would have most likely resulted in significant disruption without success. However, the use of the semi-forced passing method outlined in Article 49:3 is contentious and diminishes the law’s legitimacy to some extent.
Nevertheless, I think that taking the safe route would have compromised the president’s negotiating position with the Republican Party because there wouldn’t be a majority that could pass the law without the support of his deputies. The Republican Party currently lacks the ability to enforce party discipline on its members, and a sizable portion of them are not interested in backing the president. Last but not least, if Macron had retreated even partially, this would not have led to appeasing his opponents, but rather his losing the support of a fifth or a quarter of the public opinion that backs him.
It is easy to blame the French crisis on one of the parties’ recklessness or another’s extremism, on the fragility of the economic culture of certain segments of French society, on the elites’ subpar performance, or even on the worsening living conditions of the lower classes. Undoubtedly, all of these and other factors, as well as the buildup of resentments and negative feelings, played a significant role, but we tend to view the crisis as a new chapter of a comprehensive and extended crisis with very deep roots, a crisis that is at once a regime crisis, a political crisis, a society crisis, an economic crisis, a financial crisis, and a cultural crisis, a crisis that strongly raises the issue of stifling and Its resolution calls for a return to launching circumstances that are not right now possible and when one or some of the actors seek to find one of these circumstances, others get in the way.
Causes of the Crisis
The crisis has countless causes and manifestations. Consider, for instance, the republic’s motto: liberty, equality, and fraternity. In reality, neither equality nor fraternity exist. Since 1974, there has been a steady decline in the public’s confidence in its political system, its elites, and the media. Public opinion generally does not favor French presidents’ performance, which is generally regarded as poor. The skeleton that supports society’s harmony and cohesion has broken down. In comparison to where it was at the turn of the twentieth century, French language and math education have declined. The trade balance is inadequate and shows a decline, the health care system is in crisis, industry’s contribution to the national product has decreased, and the economy as a whole is in trouble. The traditional ruling parties (socialist and republican) have disintegrated, and populist and extremist forces now account for more than sixty percent of the electorate. France has serious debts, crime rates are on the rise, the country’s internal security is deteriorating, and the traditional routes to social advancement are, at best, ineffective.
The population pyramid is inverting because of low birth rates. The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed the weakness of European armies and forced enormous increases in military spending, similar to new threats in the Sahel, the Sahara, and the Indian and Pacific oceans. French foreign policy is having difficulty adapting to the course of the international system, and there is no agreement on it. In many ways, EU membership offers security, but in others, it imposes severe limitations. For instance, it results in the state losing authority over its own monetary policies. Energy provision and the shift to a green economy present formidable obstacles. There are many French middle-class people with high talent and competencies, but many of them emigrate, and the ones who remain are unable to translate their skills into what would enable a significant renaissance. With the exception of a decline in unemployment and a better-than-anticipated performance during the Covid crisis, there are no positive indicators, despite the presence of enormous human potential, an elite of senior officials and other admirable intellectuals, as well as large portions of the middle class.
Depending on their political inclinations and the kinds of files that interest them, each analyst assigns a different starting date to the crisis. Arguably, everyone could possibly be partially correct. The path of decline was marked by stages and social developments, and the errors of politicians played a significant role in this decline. The conservative right will argue that the decline started with May 68 protests or soon thereafter. The civil unrest of May 1968 was a revolt against the authoritarian patterns that pervade all social interactions, including those that take place in the home, workplace, university, school, places of worship, and the street, as well as a call to widen the scope of freedoms without taking into account the needs of social cohesion and security. Shortly before the uprising, the Catholic and Marxist systems (churches, party headquarters, schools, youth organizations, clubs, and publications) that ensured the transmission of culture from one generation to the next began to crumble. Social cohesion and a sense of duty towards the state have suffered since this date as a result of the decline in the quality of education on the one hand and the efforts of all politicians to expand the circle of rights, which we find commendable in principle but which we believe has had unintended consequences.
Some people date the beginning of the crisis to 1973 or 1974, when the “oil shock” ended a period of development that had lasted for over a quarter of a century, and the last president with absolute legitimacy had passed away. Some argue that the crisis began in 1973 and 1974, with the “oil shock” that brought an end to a quarter-century-long period of development and the death of the last president with absolute legitimacy. President Valery d’Estaing was elected with a razor-thin margin of victory, while President Mitterrand was rejected by major sectors. Macron was elected twice not because of widespread support for him but rather because of opposition to the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
In contrast to President Chirac, who was re-elected after defeating Marine Le Pen’s father, far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, President Macron failed to recognize that his election was not a support for his policies or a mandate for them, but rather one for doing the least amount of harm, despite the clarity of the situation following the most recent legislative elections, where he did not win an absolute majority. In contrast to President Chirac, who was re-elected after defeating Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, President Macron did not recognize that his election was neither a mandate nor an endorsement of his program, but rather an election for the least damage, despite the fact that he did not obtain an absolute majority in the most recent legislative elections.
I heard harsh criticism of presidents Mitterrand and Chirac, who ruled France for 26 years, for delivering a speech implying that it is possible to reduce working hours and lower the retirement age while raising incomes because the French’s high productivity will compensate for the reduction in working hours. However, the reality is that given globalization and China’s entry into the market, this was not feasible. President Sarkozy attempted to change this perception, and he achieved some success; however, a portion of the French still believe that work is a necessary punishment that they do not deserve. Some political forces, the extreme left, adopted a statement defending “the right to be lazy”.
Others contend that France failed to adequately address the effects of globalization, the fall of the Soviet Union, and German unity because it attempted to stifle the German genie by pushing for economic unification in Europe and imposing a single currency on Germany. The French economy suffered because the Germans were successful in imposing their terms —financial restraint and a high-value currency — which fit the circumstances of the European economy but hurt the French economy because it lost an important tool, monetary policy. The new, disastrous reduction in working hours that Lionel Jospin’s administration approved during President Chirac’s first term has made the situation worse.
All of this resulted in a trade deficit and the loss of a large portion of France’s industrial base. Immigrant integration has grown more challenging as a result of the communications revolution, the emergence of satellite channels, the shift to the information economy, and the decline of industry. As we’ve already discussed, President Chirac did very little in his second term because he knew he lacked a mandate. During his extended presidency, he attempted to implement significant reforms twice but was unsuccessful both times.
There are also those who believe that the three presidents who followed President Chirac were doomed to fail because they were forced to deal with both structural and emergency crises simultaneously. These crises included the global economic crisis in 2009, the collapse of the Greek economy, and others. All three presidents contributed significantly — albeit unintentionally in the cases of Sarkozy and Hollande — to the demise of France’s two major political parties and the subsequent rise in support for far-right groups. President Sarkozy reduced the budget and the number of police and army personnel, exacerbating the security crisis. President Hollande was aware of the severity of the legitimacy crisis and the social crisis, as well as his inability to impose party discipline on the cadres of his party, who poisoned the atmosphere of his presidency and obstructed all of his steps. As a result, he moved very slowly in the reform process. In an election that cannot be regarded as a mandate, President Macron sought to significantly speed up the pace of reforms that had been put off. His authoritarian style and approach, provocative remarks to the poor, and disregard for his small base of supporters caused the situation to blow up in 2018.
