The French crisis of the yellow vest movement: Macron’s quest for a new era in charge of the re-election campaign

PARIS — A man of perpetual motion, President Emmanuel Macron of France finds himself in an uneasy state of drift. Five months into his second and final five-year term, he wants to forge his legacy, but seems unsure which way to move. He promised “a new era” when re-elected in April, but new limits on his power and cascading crises have nudged the transformative off the agenda.

This isn’t the first conflagration that Macron has weathered. The yellow vest movement sent French demonstrators into the streets, troubled by rising fuel prices. Macron calculated, rightly, that the French eventually lose patience with extended strikes and unrest. That worked before. Macron met with union leaders, addressed the nation, laid out the costs and dropped fuel taxes that were a core of the protests. The stakes are higher, but it is not unreasonable that he can find a similar path out of this crisis.

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David A. Andelman is a contributor to CNN and author of A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars that Might Still Happen. He was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

I received an email from an american visitor in Paris who was walking home from dinner when she saw the cars on fire. At Rue Royale, they were hurling tear gas. The street was on fire from one end to the other in order to reach my hotel. Is Paris burning? Yes, in my street. I can smell smoke in my room.

From the far-right acolytes of Marine Le Pen to the far left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (unbowed) party, the political sharks are all smelling blood on the water, even though the next elections aren’t for another four years.

Are pension reforms really needed in France? No-confidence votes in Macron’s time for the retirement age of 62 may have no good in France

At issue is Macron’s decision that the nation needs to bite the bullet and raise the national retirement age from 62 to 64 years — which would still leave it in the lower half of European Union nations. At the current 62 years, only Slovenia at 60 is lower. In the 13 years since the retirement age in France rose to 62 from 60, the average life expectancy has also risen by two years to 83 from 81, according to UN population figures.

Effectively, the various political currents coursing through the halls of Parliament have some tough decisions to make. If any Parliament member were considering voting for the pension reform, they would not have needed to publicly declare themselves for it, because they would have had the support of their own electorate.

Buses, subways and public works across France shuddered to a halt, barricades went up in streets and were set ablaze. Garbage collectors walked off, protesting the rise in their retirement to 59 from 57 — among the many exceptions for earlier full retirement due to the nature of their jobs. More than 7,000 tons of garbage have piled up on the streets of Paris — a pungent smorgasbord for the city’s rat population that, among the world’s most prolific, is said to be thriving.

If a motion passes, however, it would be a big blow for Macron: the pension bill would be rejected and his Cabinet would have to resign. In that case, the president would need to hire a new Cabinet in order to be able to get legislation passed.

While the President can’t run for re-election in four years, members of the National Assembly have to face voters. The extreme left and far right in France can shape any future government or even stand for elections on the platform of pension reform, if they so choose, in theory, because of the enormous power they have.

If a no-confidence vote succeeds — as early as Monday — will they do better with a new prime minister, also appointed by Macron? For that matter, would France even do better with its status quo, a retirement age of 62? Not in my view, neither inMacron’s.

The President is quite correct in pointing to the strains going forward on the entire national budget if the retirement age remains unchanged. There were more than four workers for every retired person when the Fifth Republic was created. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 1.7 workers per retiree, and over the next decade, without an adjustment an increasingly aging population will be relying on barely 1.5 workers to fund each retiree’s pension. The nation will be in a dire situation if taxes go up.

The French National Rally is facing a deep democratic rupture: violence and protests after the vote on Macron’s No-Confidence Motion

The no-confidence motions were brought against the government by the lower house of Parliament, a move that Mr. Macron was allowed to take by the French Constitution.

The National Rally has put forward a motion and it might not get much support from within the party. The other, filed by a small group of independent lawmakers and backed by a broad alliance of opposition parties, poses a greater threat.

Anger towards Mr. Macron has grown as a result of the uncertainty and the possibility of a surprise outcome, which has intensified after three days.

The decision to push the bill through the National Assembly without a vote on Thursday set off angry, often spontaneous protests across the country, some turning into fierce confrontations between riot police and unruly or violent protesters.

The Paris police eventually banned protests last week on the Place de la Concorde and the nearby Champs-Élysées avenue, citing “risks of disturbances to public order” after two days of violent nighttime clashes between riot police and protesters who lit trash fires and threw cobblestones. There was a large police presence over the weekend, and many protesters were arrested.

Graffiti and stones were thrown at the office of a lawmaker favorable to the pension bill. Garbage collector strikes are still going on in some areas.

Protesters lit a fire in front of the National Assembly building on Friday night in order to call attention to their fight to reverse the reform.

He estimated that about 15 Republican lawmakers would vote in favor of him, but they would be short of the required number to succeed. But, he added, if the vote had become so close, “it is because there is a deep democratic rupture in our country.”

“All is in the hands of these 30-or-so Republicans who are hostile to the reform,” Charles de Courson, a high-profile independent lawmaker, told France Inter radio on Monday.

On Saturday night, protesters threw stones at the office of the Republican party president in Nice, on the French Riviera, and left a message scrawled on a wall: “The motion or the cobblestone.”

French President Emmanuel Macron says the pension reform bill is going through democratic course: anger, scorn, anger, and the frustrations in Paris

Republican lawmakers are divided. The party’s leadership, which backed the pension bill in exchange for some concessions, has said repeatedly that it did not want to topple the government, and most of the party’s lawmakers are expected to follow that line.

A Republican lawmaker from the southwest of France, who is a leader of sorts for party rebels, stated on Monday morning that he would vote in favor of the no-confidence motion.

In a sign of the growing pressure on him, Mr. Macron was forced to appeal for calm on Sunday, and he also added that “after months of political and social consultations and more than 170 hours of debate,” he wanted the pension bill to “run its democratic course, in a manner respectful to all.”

One study by the Elabe polling institute published on Monday by the BFMTV news channel found that 68 percent of those surveyed felt “angry” about the decision to push the bill through without a vote, and that the same percentage wanted a no-confidence motion against the government to succeed.

In an interview on Sunday with the newspaper Libération, Laurent Berger, the head of the country’s largest union, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, said that Mr. Macron’s reform was “a disaster,” and he urged him not to enact the pension changes even if they became law.

“We have gone from a feeling of scorn to a feeling of anger” because of the decision to push the bill through without a vote, Mr. Berger said, even as he condemned the violent outbursts that marred protests in Paris and other cities last week. The ninth protest has been called by labor unions, and they have not taken part in the weekend melees.

On Friday at the Place de la Concorde, Hélne Aldeguer was not surprised by the decision to push the bill through without a vote.

PARIS — A parody photo appearing on protest signs and online in France shows President Emmanuel Macron sitting on piles of garbage. It’s a reference to the garbage going uncollected in Paris because of the strike, and also to what people think about their leader.

The pension reform bill was forced through without a vote by his government, which may hamper their ability to get legislation passed for the remaining four years of his term.

The parody photo was put up at the protests by demonstrators to show their displeasure with the last minute use of the government’s constitutional power to pass the bill.

Reply to Macron’s ultimatum: Bringing the French Parliament to an end of its democratic path, and why he should not intervene

In his first public comment on the issue since then, the 45-year-old leader expressed his wish for the bill to “reach the end of its democratic path in an atmosphere of respect for everyone,” according to a statement Sunday from his office provided to The Associated Press.

Now, Macron’s government has alienated citizens “for a long time” to come by using the special authority it has under Article 49.3 of the French Constitution to impose a widely unpopular change, said Brice Teinturier, deputy director general of the Ipsos poll institute.

He said the situation’s only winners are far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, “which continues its strategy of both ‘getting respectable’ and opposing Macron,” and France’s labor unions. Le Pen was runner-up to Macron in the country’s last two presidential elections.

The French retirement system needs modifying to keep it alive, according to the president. He says other proposed options, like increasing the already heavy tax burden, would push investors away, and that decreasing the pensions of current retirees was not a realistic alternative.

Macron notably hopes to propose new measures designed to bring France’s unemployment rate down to 5%, from 7.2% now, by the end of his second and final term.

TheFifth Republic was established by Gen. Charles de Gaulle and he wanted a stable political system.

And Mathilde Panot, a lawmaker from the leftist Nupes coalition, said with sarcasm Thursday that it was a “very good” idea for Macron to disband the Assembly and trigger an election.

“I believe it would be a good occasion for the country to reaffirm that yes, they want the retirement age down at 60,” Panot said. The Nupes are always ready to govern.