Macron relaunches the pension reform despite the rejection of the unions and the opposition

A controversial reform, which is on everyone's lips and which threatens to unleash a wave of demonstrations in the country.

This Tuesday, the French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, plans to present the pension reform, which provides for the progressive delay of the retirement age.

A campaign promise by the current president, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, which he already tried to approve during his first term, but which was shelved at the start of the pandemic in 2020, after weeks of strikes and protests.

In his traditional New Year's message, on December 31, Macron insisted that "more work" will have to be done to "ensure the balance" of the pension system in the coming years and recalled that his objective was to apply the reform "by the end of the summer” of 2023. However, he did not give any indication as to whether the legal retirement age would be raised to 65 or 64 years, with an increase in the contribution period, points that have been at the center of negotiations in recent weeks.

To justify the need for a reform, the Government bases itself on the projections of the Pension Guidance Council, an independent public body, whose reports have been subject to different interpretations by the Executive, the opposition and the unions.

According to what the Government has said, the pension system will register a balance in the short term, but deficits are expected in the coming decades as the number of people who contribute for each retiree decreases, due to the aging of the population.

Prime Minister Borne declared last Tuesday that the option to postpone the retirement age to 65 years was not set in stone and that there are other solutions to balance the financing of the system.

She also insisted that the contribution period necessary to collect a full pension, which will rise to 43 years as a result of a previous reform, will not be increased.

The retirement age in France is one of the lowest in Europe.

Currently, the French can retire voluntarily from the age of 62, but to receive a full pension it is necessary to have contributed for more than 40 years.

The prime minister multiplied last week contacts with unions and political leaders before formally unveiling the project.

Her presentation, initially scheduled for December 15, was postponed for almost a month.

Macron justified this extension by the elections of the new leader of the French conservatives, Éric Ciotti, and the new national secretary of Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV), Marine Tondelier.

"This allows us to have a few more weeks so that those (...) who have just assumed responsibilities can, on some key elements of the reform, exchange [opinions] with the government," he alleged at the time.

“The biggest challenge ahead”

The fact that the Executive has postponed the presentation of the reform shows that it "fears a strong mobilization," the CGT union assured Agence France Presse in mid-December.

The reform is rejected by all unions - including the moderate CFDT, the first in France - and by a majority of citizens, according to recent polls.

It is the first time that all the unions are willing to demonstrate together against the measure in 12 years, when the reform of the then Minister of Labor, Eric Woerth, was approved, which postponed the retirement age from 60 to 62 years.

There is already a meeting scheduled for Tuesday to set a date for mobilization.

The government hopes, however, to ensure that the CFDT does not directly oppose the reform thanks to concrete measures for long careers and workers who carry out the most arduous tasks.

On the opposition side, the main left-wing party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Unsubmissive (LFI), has already called for a demonstration on January 21 against the reform.

Their allies in the NUPES - the alliance that brings together the LFI, socialists, communists and ecologists, and which constitutes the first opposition bloc in the National Assembly - also announced a "common front" against the reform, although for the moment differences persist on what kind of actions to carry out.

The extreme right of the National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, also rejects any delay in the retirement age.

Macron, on the other hand, insists that his reform is legitimate and that he has been re-elected by the French to carry it out.

The president lost, however, the absolute parliamentary majority in the June legislatures, which forces him to negotiate each law that he wants to push forward.

The reform, which will be presented to the Council of Ministers on January 23, is "the biggest parliamentary and social challenge that lies ahead," says Lisa Thomas-Darbois, a researcher in economics and public finance at the Montaigne Institute.

“It will be the most decisive and striking exercise of this new compromise policy since the parliamentary elections,” she adds.

In search of the support of the right

The Executive seeks the support of the right of Los Republicanos (LR), which with its 62 seats has the key to reach the threshold of the absolute majority necessary to approve the reform.

The party believes that a reform is necessary, but is divided on its red lines.

The prime minister met these days with the new president, Éric Ciotti.

"The only option that the Government has to pass this reform without [article] 49.3 is with the support of Los Republicanos," Thomas-Darbois insists.

Article 49.3 of the Constitution allows to settle parliamentary debates and directly adopt a law without putting it to a vote, as long as a motion of censure is not presented.

In September, Macron had said that he was not ruling out calling new legislative elections if the opposition blocked the reform.

At the moment, the Executive has three options to approve it.

The first is to use article 49.3, but in this case, "he would lose his last cartridge that he has left until the end of June," Thomas-Darbois stresses.

The French Constitution establishes that this instrument can only be used once during a parliamentary session [from September to June], except for financial texts.

The Government activated it ten times in total to approve the budgets.

The second option is to impose the reform through an amendment to the Social Security Budget Law and use 49.3 to vote on it.

As it is a financial text, the Executive would not lose the possibility of using this instrument again for other laws.

Finally, the third option is to get support from LR.

Three years ago, the pension reform already provoked a wave of demonstrations.

Back then, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wanted to raise the retirement age to 64, but Covid-19 put a stop to his ambitions.

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