The French unions say that they have organized “a historic May Day” for today. It has been 14 years since there was a unitary call. The common goal is to raise the final battle in the street against the delay in the retirement age and, in general, against the politics of Emmanuel Macron.
The day entails a political risk for the president and his Government, and also poses a great challenge to public order. There will be 12,000 police and gendarmes deployed, 5,000 in Paris. It would be a surprise if there were no riots.
The pension reform was already enacted after minor tweaks by the Constitutional Council, and Macron obviously does not want to overturn it. The naysayers have only a minimal hope left. On May 3, the Constitutional Council must rule on a request to collect signatures to call a popular referendum. A first request in this regard was rejected for legal reasons. The latter has a priori few possibilities, despite the fact that it is designed differently. If admitted, it would be a political bombshell.
The long union pulse looks like a war of attrition. For weeks now, to warm the atmosphere, there have been protests in all the travels of Macron and the ministers around the country. It was a matter of keeping the swords aloft, so that spirits did not drop until May Day. On Saturday there was an attempt to stage a protest during the French Cup final. The result was quite modest. Some fans did show the red card against the pension reform and used the whistles that the unions had given out, but the action went largely unnoticed due to the roar of the stands and the smoke from the fans’ smoke Nantes, who consoled themselves in this way for the beating that Toulouse de Languedoc inflicted on them.
Macron is eager to regain the political initiative with new projects and put the pension nightmare behind him. The president trusts in union fatigue and that the divisions between the fundamentalists and the pragmatists will return. It will indeed be difficult to organize more mobilizations for the summer, although it cannot be ruled out.
Marine Le Pen is savoring the sweet moment for her party, according to the polls. The leader of the extreme right and former candidate for the Élysée knows that this crisis has strengthened her without doing anything or proposing alternatives. Yesterday, in an interview with Le Parisien, Le Pen accused the president of having carried out a “social deconstruction” and reminded him that the crisis has only three ways out: resignation, dissolution of the National Assembly to call new elections or a popular referendum.
The degradation of the social climate and the constant brawl in the street has consequences in the financial markets. It was one of Macron’s fears if he did not go ahead with the delay in the retirement age. France’s solvency suffers. A first sign of this was the decision on Friday by the credit agency Fitch to lower its rating, from AA to AA-. The French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, considered that Fitch had made an overly pessimistic assessment of the risks and reiterated Paris’ firm will to pursue structural reforms. Nevertheless, the concern persists. Moody’s and Standard agencies
