Reform or Revolution? French Politics at the Crossroads
| Author | Helen Drake |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058231167271 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
36 POLITICAL INSIGHT • MARCH 2023
France is no stranger to industrial
action, but even by French
standards 2023 has been notable.
By February, ve days of national
‘mobilisation’ had already taken place, with
more planned. The protests disrupted daily
life and generated all-too familiar images of
France: pictures of an unhappy populace,
and a divided political class unable to agree,
or even disagree, on what should happen.
Lying just below the surface of these familiar
visuals is a crucial political trigger: President
Emmanuel Macron’s intention to reform
the state pension and, specically, to raise
the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, in
increments, by 2030.
The proposed reforms have dominated
French politics in recent months. A
government Bill to ‘correct the nances of
the social security system’ has been put
before Parliament for debate, rst in the lower
house (the National Assembly) and then in
Reform or Revolution?
French Politics at the
Crossroads
Helen Drake examines what recent legislative battles over pensions
reform say about the state of French politics, and Emmanuel
Macron’s tenure as President.
the upper house, the Senate. Framed as a
nance Bill, the executive is constitutionally
entitled to limit parliamentary debate to
50 days in total (of which only 20 in the
lower house). It can also claim that the Bill is
conned to balancing the books to safeguard
a fundamental principle of France’s basic
pension system, namely solidarity between
generations: under this distributive system
today’s workers pay in for today’s pensioners.
Opponents of the Bill, however, point to
the fact that people will have to contribute
for longer towards their pension (from 42 to
43 years) and will retire later: how, they ask, is
the reform fair to younger people just starting
out? To those who began their careers
© ALEXANDROS MICHAILIDIS/Alamy Live News
Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 36Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 36 27/02/2023 13:5027/02/2023 13:50
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