With France in Uproar Over Pensions, Macron May Need One Early

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/world/europe/france-macron-pension-strike.html

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PARIS — With his country in turmoil, more chaos looming and no resolution in sight, President Emmanuel Macron of France tried changing the subject.

Last Thursday, nearly a million people had taken to the streets to protest his plan to remake France’s uniquely generous pension system.

But a day later, Mr. Macron, instead of addressing what was on everyone’s minds — how to get out of the standoff, which has stranded thousands of commuters — delivered a lyrical tribute far from Paris to three rescue workers killed in a helicopter crash.

That Olympian silence on the immediate issue of the day encapsulated Mr. Macron’s challenge as a reformer, past, present and future, in the view of some analysts.

The French president sold himself to voters as a nonpolitician, but that credential has come back to haunt him. His own party criticizes what many call his maladroit communication on an anxiety-inducing subject. Now, some within the party are predicting a rough road ahead for the man who promised his country a “revolution” in a campaign manifesto of that name.

His citizens turned out to have a revolution of their own in mind — one that, like so many in France’s past, is bubbling up from the streets.

More strikes and demonstrations were planned for Tuesday, after the government met through the weekend to refine the details of the pension-streamlining plan. On Monday, commuters woke to more chaos, with 14 out of 16 metro lines shut down in Paris, most trains across the country canceled and traffic backed up for miles around Paris.

The unions are preparing for a long fight.

Mr. Macron may now may be running out of space and time to deliver his own cerebral version of the revolution.

“The reform possibility of this government is weakened,” said Gérard Grunberg, a veteran political scientist at Sciences Po, the international research university.

Mr. Macron has tried to nudge France toward a closer embrace of market forces — loosening up rules for hiring and firing, for example — and has reduced the unemployment rate from over 9 percent to around 8 percent.

But this has not widened his circle of support: barely a third of the French approve of him. And his latest initiative may further erode his popularity.

“He seems absolutely incapable of expanding his political and social base,” said Mr. Grunberg. “He’s only supported by the little quarter who support what he represents ideologically. I don’t see him regaining popularity. It’s a big weakness.”

Mr. Macron insists that the new pension plan, which aims to simplify the country’s current 42 systems into one points-based system, will be fairer.

“It’s to unite, in a single system,” Mr. Macron said at a town-hall meeting in October. “And whatever your field of work, each point you save, that you ‘buy,’ it will give you exactly the same rights when you reach retirement.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will present what is supposed to be the plan’s final draft.

Apart from the huge cost, there is little doubt the current system works well for many.

In France the poverty rate among those older than 65 is less than 5 percent, largely because of the pension system, while in the United States it approaches 20 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In France, life expectancy is increasing, while in the United States it is diminishing in significant sectors of the population.

With public opinion behind the strikers, and the unions emboldened by their success, the margin for maneuvering by the government appears limited. Fifty-three percent backed the strikers in a poll published Sunday in Le Journal du Dimanche.

Mr. Macron’s political learning on the job has not helped. Even some of his own supporters are starting to get anxious.

“We absolutely must remove the uncertainties for the French, that this reform won’t have a negative impact on their pensions,” said Benoît Simian, a member of Parliament from Mr. Macron’s party who represents an area around Bordeaux.

The standoff, he said, “hurts the reformist capacity of the government, which is a necessity for our future. Clearly, this could put a wrench in our ability to reform.”

The lack of clarity over who, if anybody, will win and lose in the new pension system has opened a door for Mr. Macron’s hitherto weak political opposition and for the unions. Some analysts say private-sector workers will come out ahead. That prediction has enraged the public sector.

“They decided, all by themselves, to create a revolution in the pensions system,” the leftist opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon told journalists in Marseille last week. “It’s a real provocation to our welfare state.”

At a union demonstration this weekend in Paris against the pension changes, protesters made clear who their target was. “Stop Macron and his government and their reactionary program!” an organizer yelled through a microphone on a chilly plaza in front of the Montparnasse railway station, normally busy but now virtually emptied.

“This movement goes way beyond just pensions,” said Fabrice Angei, an official with the leftist CGT union, shouting above the union anthems blaring from the loudspeakers.

“Mr. Macron is the representative of the free-marketers, of Thatcher, and that is being contested all over the world,” Mr. Angei said. “And he is an anachronism in relation to this revolt against inequality and the authoritarian state.”

Olivier Thily, a railway worker at the demonstration, said: “We’re hoping that they will back down. Anyway, this is only the beginning.”

The pension standoff may have highlighted Mr. Macron’s vulnerabilities as a reformer, but it has also shown his determination to proceed regardless of warnings from history.

Nearly 25 years ago, the government of one of his mentors, Alain Juppé, was fatally weakened by a similar effort to streamline the pension systems. After a general transport strike lasting nearly a month, Mr. Juppé — often accused of the same kind of high-minded imperiousness as Mr. Macron — was forced to back down. A year-and-a-half later Mr. Juppé’s government collapsed.

Mr. Macron already faced a near-death experience for his government because of protests last year by the Yellow Vest movement. They were tamed with a massive infusion of cash, fierce police repression and days of presidential palaver.

“What we’re seeing is that, with considerable courage, Macron is attacking, like no one before, the systematic reform of the pensions system,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist. He said, “Every time anybody has tried to do this, there’s been huge social mobilization, because the whole subject is so anxiety-provoking.”

Mr. Macron’s advisers say he understands the risks.

“He’s not losing his cool, and he’s totally prepared,” said Ismaël Emelien, a longtime aide to Mr. Macron who is now in the private sector but still counsels the president.

“He knows that this reform is complicated, and that reforming pensions is the hardest one of all,” Mr. Emelien said. “It revives lots of bad memories for the French.”

Public opinion appears to be on the other side.

“I completely support the cause,” said Anais de Matos, a freelance videographer, who said the strike “doesn’t bother me at all — I think it’s great.”

“We can’t go back,” Ms. de Matos said. “It isn’t that we need to take some privileges from some people, but that we need to extend those privileges to others.”

Melissa Godin contributed reporting.