France enters a zone of turbulence after the pension reform is approved by decree

France has entered a zone of political and social turmoil.

The adoption without a vote of the unpopular pension reform opens a complicated stage for President Emmanuel Macron and for a government whose fragility is greater than ever.

On the same Thursday afternoon, after the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, announced that she was resorting to article 49.3 of the Constitution to act by decree, thousands of protesters spontaneously took to the streets of Paris.

Law enforcement officers detained 310 people in Paris and other French cities in a night of riots.

In the capital, flooded with uncollected garbage due to the municipal cleaning service strike, some protesters took the opportunity to burn it.

The images of bonfires and burning barricades are reminiscent of the yellow vest protests in 2018 and contrast with the peaceful nature of the union demonstrations of these months.

The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, denounced that dolls representing Macron and Borne had been burned and prefectures had been attacked, that is, government delegations in provincial capitals.

"The opposition is legitimate, the demonstrations are legitimate, disorder and sowing disorder, no," Darmanin said this Friday on the RTL network.

In France Info, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the anti-capitalist party La France Insoumisa, declared: “Something fundamental happened.

Immediately there were spontaneous mobilizations throughout the country.

It is evident that, for my part, I encourage them to do them ”.

After eight days of massive protests since January and prolonged strikes in sectors such as the public cleaning service in the capital, the unions called new mobilizations this weekend and a new great day of national protest, the ninth since Borne presented the reform in January, for Thursday March 23.

On Friday, several unions stopped traffic on the Paris periphery – the ring road – and other access roads to French cities.

The increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years was already upsetting many French people.

That the law was adopted by decree, avoiding the vote in the National Assembly, reinforces for many the reasons for indignation.

The immediate challenge for Macron, Prime Minister Borne and their government are the motions of no confidence that the parliamentary opposition wants to present, the easiest way they have to abort the reform.

The opposition has 24 hours to present the motion.

In order to submit to the vote of the chamber, it requires the signature of 58 deputies.

Afterwards, it must be voted on within 48 hours.

Monday could be the decisive day.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the extreme right of the National Regroupment (RN) and Macron's rival in the last two presidential elections, has already announced that her party will present a motion of no confidence.

The left, which brings together socialists, environmentalists and communists under the command of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's

, could present another.

And a third motion is being prepared to be presented by the small group of regionalist Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories (LIOT, for its acronym in French) deputies.

The problem with Le Pen and the left is that, even if they were to unite, they would not reach the 289 votes that the absolute majority marks.

The motion would fail.

For it to be successful, the 88 deputies from the RN and the 149 from the left should add up to 32 of the 61 deputies from Los Republicanos -the party of the moderate right-, plus the 20 from LIOT.

And this is where the initiative of this small group can be the key for Monday.

It is the most likely option for a motion to prosper.

If the no-confidence initiative wins an absolute majority of seats, Macron could name another prime minister.

He could opt for one of the right -Borne comes from the social democracy- that would allow him to build a stable alliance with Los Republicanos (LR).

Or dissolve the National Assembly and call new legislative elections, with the risk, for the president, that they would be won by Le Pen's party and that he would have to name her cohabiting prime minister.

That is, with a president and a government of the opposite sign.

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Fulfill a promise by decree

The president of LR, Éric Ciotti, declared this Thursday: "We will not vote in favor of any motion of censure."

The declaration seems to nip in the bud any chance of him succeeding.

At the same time, Ciotti and his parliamentary lieutenants believed, for weeks, that his group would approve Macron's reform in the National Assembly, and in the end it has not.

If the Government gave up the vote and opted for article 49.3, it was because too many conservative deputies rebelled against their bosses and were going to vote against.

The effect of 49.3, whatever the result of the motions of no confidence, threatens to cloud the political and social environment in the coming months, and perhaps years.

The price, for the president, is high.

Macron has turned the majority of the country against him.

He has fueled mistrust in rulers and accusations of disconnection with social reality.

And, although the government's concessions during the last weeks of negotiations have not managed to appease the opposition, they have ended up reducing, with these concessions, the savings in public accounts that the reform was supposed to allow.

In the end, it is a watered-down text, less ambitious than the initial project and even less than the reform that Macron already tried, without finally carrying it out, in 2019 and 2020.

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