Tag: Marine Le Pen

Macron accused of doing far-right’s bidding with passage of stricter immigration law

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French President Emmanuel Macron is under renewed fire after urging his minority government to vote for a strengthened immigration bill that was endorsed by the far right. The late Tuesday vote, which divided Macron’s coalition MPs and prompted his health minister to resign a day later, was heralded by far-right leader Marine Le Pen as an “ideological victory” upon its passage. 

In a speech following his April 2022 re-election, Emmanuel Macron was well aware he owed his victory to left-leaning voters who considered him the lesser of two evils as he faced off a challenge from Marine Le Pen. “I know that many of our compatriots voted for me not to support the ideas I represent but to block those of the far right,” he acknowledged.

Less than two years later, Macron is facing criticism that he betrayed those same constituents by aligning with the far right after his minority government helped pass an immigration law that was heavily influenced by the right-wing Les Républicains party and supported by the far-right National Rally.

Soon after it was passed, the law was heralded by far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen who proclaimed an “ideological victory”.

Macron and members of his government rejected that assessment in a round of interviews on Wednesday.  

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told France Inter she felt a “sense of duty fulfilled” after the adoption of the immigration law. Faced with strong criticism from the left, NGOs and even within her own government, Borne insisted that the law “respects our values”.

‘Préférence Nationale’

The immigration law includes several measures inspired by the National Rally’s policy platform. For example, access to certain social benefits will be conditional on a longer period of legal residence in France.

What’s more, sanctions against companies employing undocumented workers will be stepped up.

Measures like these and others concern critics who say the Macron government has accepted policies affiliated with an ideology of “préférence nationale” – policies that legitimise discrimination against foreign nationals in favour of French citizens concerning access to employment, housing and social protections.

“This law does not encompass the entirety or even the majority of Marine Le Pen’s presidential programme, but some of her policies – especially regarding national preference – certainly made the cut even if the law does not go as far as the National Rally wants,” said Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist on the far right and the director of the Observatoire des Radicalités Politiques.

“It’s an exaggeration to talk about an extreme-right text – I would call it instead a ‘hard-right’ text – but we are still opening the door to national preference. We are not fully there, but the door is ajar,” says Caroline Janvier, an MP from Macron’s Renaissance party who voted against the immigration law on Tuesday. 

‘Kiss of death’

It is precisely the addition of national preference policies that tipped the vote on Tuesday night.

Until the mid-afternoon, representatives from the National Rally repeatedly stated they would not endorse the bill, deeming it impossible to approve a text that grants undocumented workers legal status. But seeing the possibility of a strategic victory on the issue of national preference, Le Pen reversed course.

“One can rejoice in an ideological victory … national preference is now inscribed in law, meaning the French will have an advantage over foreigners in accessing certain social benefits,” Le Pen said on Tuesday.

Janvier described Le Pen’s endorsement as the “kiss of death” – a “political move” to make Macron’s government look complicit with the far right in the eyes of left-leaning constituents.

National Rally members were not the only ones pleased by Tuesday’s vote. “There was a kind of jubilation among MPs from Les Républicains over having chipped away at a taboo: that of equality between French and foreigners,” said Camus. “For them, this means that the cultural hegemony of the left has begun to crumble. Beyond the immigration issue, a moral taboo has been broken.”

But Camus said the party’s hopes of luring away far-right supporters are likely in vain. “Les Républicains continue to pursue a strategy of undermining the National Rally by hijacking their policy platform. The only problem is that this strategy doesn’t work. The National Rally continues to rise in the polls,” he said.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s father and the founder of National Rally predecessor the National Front, may have said it best: “Voters always prefer the original to the copy.” 

Victory by ‘background noise’

Macron could have prevented this shift by choosing, in the face of Les Républicains demands, to withdraw the bill and start from scratch. But he deemed it preferable to go through with the vote, even if it meant dividing his coalition.

In total, 27 MPs in the government’s coalition voted against the bill that passed while 32 abstained. Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau resigned from his role in protest the following day.

Borne insisted on France Inter on Wednesday that “there is no crisis in the coalition” while government spokesperson Olivier Véran said that same day there was “no ministerial rebellion”.

Macron defended his decision in an interview with the “C à Vous” TV programme on Wednesday evening. “It is a shield that we needed,” he said, adding that the law “will allow us to fight against what nourishes the National Rally party” – namely immigration fears.

Read moreFiercely contested immigration law is a ‘shield that we needed’, Macron says

Whatever the case, the lines are no longer the same as 20 years ago, Camus said. “With this law, we have accepted the far-right vision of immigration as a danger.”

He said the National Rally’s success is due to persistent “background noise”: “This law would not have been approved without half a century of emphasis on national preference and the idea that immigration is a burden, that we pay a price for it or that it is a factor in criminality.”

To offset the right’s most extreme measures, the Macron government appears to be adopting a novel strategy: to accept Les Républicains’ demands, knowing full well that some of them will be invalidated by the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest constitutional court.

The president submitted the immigration bill to the high court on Wednesday to “decide on its conformity in whole or in part with the Constitution”, Véran announced. Borne has also suggested that some of the bill’s measures are unconstitutional and that the text would likely “evolve”.

But it’s a risky bet, according to Camus. “French people will have a hard time understanding that the law has been emptied of its substance,” he warned.

“This will inevitably benefit the National Rally and the idea, which is already beginning to take hold, that a ‘government of judges’ works against the interests of the country.”

This article was translated from the original in French.



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‘Contradictions of Macronism’: French government fights to save face after immigration bill debacle

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President Emmanuel Macron’s government vowed on Tuesday to press ahead with a controversial immigration bill, a day after its flagship reform was rejected by lawmakers in a humiliating setback. The political crisis has heaped further pressure on a government that has struggled to pass reforms without a parliamentary majority.

In a surprise move, the French National Assembly voted to back a motion rejecting a controversial immigration bill on Monday without even debating it. The motion, proposed by the Greens, gained support not only from left-wing representatives but also from members of the right-wing Les Républicains and the far-right National Rally. 

The government’s stunning defeat in parliament prompted opposition politicians to call for its dissolution. Jordan Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, told BFMTV on Tuesday he was “ready to serve as prime minister”.

The Élysée Palace, meanwhile, has moved fast to try and stop the political fallout. After an emergency ministerial meeting on Tuesday, government spokesperson Olivier Véran announced the formation of a special joint commission aimed at breaking the parliamentary gridlock “as fast as possible”’. The commission will be composed of seven representatives from both houses of parliament and will aim to return the bill to both chambers for a vote, Véran said. 

French government spokesperson Olivier Véran holds a press conference after a cabinet meeting at the presidential Élysée Palace in Paris, on December 12, 2023. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

After months of seeking to secure a majority in the National Assembly for his flagship policy, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had a lot riding on the legislation’s success. In response to the setback, Darmanin offered his resignation, which Macron rejected.  

Darmanin had actively courted the right for months in an attempt to secure a majority, accepting a substantial rewrite of the bill in the conservative-led Senate. However, the bill presented on Monday in the Assembly bore little resemblance to the one voted on in the Senate, much to the dismay of Les Républicains.

Speaking on TF1 on Monday after the vote, Darmanin acknowledged the defeat. “It is a failure, of course, because I want to provide resources for the police (…) and magistrates to combat undocumented immigration,” he said.

The limits of ‘en même temps’

Macron’s government has touted its proposed immigration law as a way to respond to voter concerns and prevent the far right from monopolising the immigration debate.  

“The president believes it is necessary to respond to what he sees as a public demand, given the multitude of events that have highlighted immigration issues in the news. This explains the government’s desire to show citizens that it takes the initiative and acts,” said Bruno Cautrès, a researcher at the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po Paris (CEVIPOF).

However, Monday’s debacle in the National Assembly has exposed the limitations of the politics of “en même temps” (“at the same time”) – an approach pursued by Macron since 2017, combining policy solutions from both the right and the left wings of French politics.  

What was possible with an absolute majority during Macron’s first term is no longer feasible with a minority government.

According to a poll conducted by Odoxa, 72% of French citizens consider better control of immigration to be the bill’s most important objective. But the French are far from unified on how they want to resolve the system’s issues – mirroring deep divisions between left and right.

While the proposed law is widely perceived as right-leaning, it failed to satisfy both the right and far right, who reject providing work permits to undocumented workers. Simultaneously, it proved too repressive for the left, which opposes restrictions on family reunifications and the introduction of an annual debate on migration quotas.

Politicians are urging Macron’s government to choose a side instead of attempting to please everyone. Olivier Marleix, the head of Les Républicains in the lower house, told French television channel LCI that his party was “ready to vote” if the text is revised to the version voted through by the Senate.  

“We want the government to choose sides: either it’s a right-wing text or a left-wing text, but it can’t be both at the same time.”

Even Macron’s political movement, Renaissance, exhibited internal divisions over the bill. The left wing of Renaissance, led by Sacha Houlié, the chairman of the lower house commission that amended the bill, expressed dissatisfaction with concessions made by Darmanin to the right, particularly regarding the stripping of healthcare rights for undocumented migrants.

Read moreFrench doctors vow to ‘disobey’ bill stripping undocumented migrants of healthcare rights

 

“We have red lines. It would be irresponsible to go beyond our political DNA … The adoption of the text cannot come at the cost of a division within the majority,” said Houlié in an interview with French Financial daily Les Échos on Sunday.

“It is very difficult to achieve consensus on immigration, which generates a diversity of perspectives and a clear division between right and left,” said Cautres. “There have been many hesitations by the government over the months. The balance is too difficult to find because this is typically the kind of issue where the contradictions of ‘Macronism’ can surface.”  

Fallout for Darmanin – and his colleagues

A day after having his resignation declined, Darmanin seems to have bounced back, for now. On a visit to a police station in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, Darmanin said Tuesday that “whatever path we take”, he wanted “firm measures” to be put in place by the end of the year.

But his contortions throughout the process have left a lasting impression. After expressing satisfaction with the Senate’s version which bore little resemblance to the initial bill, Darmanin had enthusiastically welcomed the version the National Assembly commission extensively revised – prompting critics to describe him as fickle.  

On Tuesday, Les Républicains party chief Eric Ciotti said he would like to work with Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne on the immigration law moving forward, suggesting his party had lost faith in the interior minister.   

“How can we talk to someone (Darmanin) who constantly insults us? It is up to the prime minister to lead this discussion,” he told Europe 1.  

If the new special joint commission fails to reach a breakthrough, it will pose a significant challenge for Borne and her government. If she still intends to adopt the bill, she may find herself compelled to use Article 49.3 – a controversial provision in the French constitution that allows the executive to bypass the National Assembly to pass a law. 

Triggering Article 49.3 for the 21st time in only 18 months would raise the political stakes even higher, particularly after the administration’s controversial use of it in the spring to pass pension reform occasioned protests and disruptive strikes across France that garnered the world’s attention.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

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Le Pen’s far right served as mouthpiece for the Kremlin, says French parliamentary report

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Dogged by accusations of proximity to the Kremlin, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party had hoped to clear its name by setting up a parliamentary inquiry to investigate foreign interference in French politics. But a draft report on the committee’s findings, which was leaked to the press this week, shows the move backfired spectacularly, finding instead that Le Pen’s policy stances sometimes echo the “official language of Putin’s regime”.

After a six-month inquiry and more than 50 hearings, the cross-party parliamentary inquiry found that the National Rally (RN) party, formerly known as the National Front, had served as a “communication channel” for Russian power, notably supporting Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea, according to the leaked report.  

The text, due to be published next week, was adopted on Thursday by eleven votes to five – to the dismay of the inquiry’s chair and instigator, RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who promptly dismissed the process as a “farce”.

The vote came just days after Le Pen was grilled by members of the investigation, swearing under oath that she had no ties to the Kremlin while also reiterating her support for Moscow’s takeover of Crimea – which she referred to as a “reattachment”.  

That support is “visibly appreciated in Moscow”, wrote the report’s rapporteur Constance Le Grip, noting that the Russian press had given ample coverage to the far-right leader’s May 24 interview, “echoing with great satisfaction the assertion, in their view reaffirmed by Marine Le Pen, that Crimea is and always has been Russian”.   

Echoing Putin ‘word for word’ 

Twice a runner-up in France’s most recent presidential elections, Le Pen has in the past spoken admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his nationalist rhetoric. Prior to last year’s invasion – and despite Russian incursions into Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine’s Donbas – she laughed off suggestions that he posed a threat to Europe. 

In her 218-page report, Le Grip, a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance party, pointed to a “long-standing” link between Russia and the far-right party co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, noting that the “strategy of political and ideological rapprochement” with Moscow had “accelerated” since his daughter became leader of the party in 2011. 

The report details frequent contacts between party representatives and Russian officials, culminating in the warm welcome Le Pen received at the Kremlin ahead of France’s 2017 presidential election, complete with a photo op with Putin. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Marine Le Pen at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 24, 2017, just weeks ahead of France’s presidential election. Mikhail Klimentyev, AFP

It also highlights the far-right leader’s “alignment” with “Russian discourse” at the time of Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the year the National Front obtained a loan from a bank close to the Kremlin. 

“All [Le Pen’s] comments on Crimea, reiterated during her inquiry hearing, repeat word for word the official language of Putin’s regime,” Le Grip wrote, noting that the National Rally had fiercely opposed then-president François Hollande’s decision to scrap the sale of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia over its takeover of Crimea.  

The pro-Russian stance “softened” in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the centrist MP conceded, noting that Le Pen and her party had “unambiguously condemned” Russian aggression – though without changing tack on Crimea.    

The Kremlin’s payroll 

Despite Le Pen’s efforts to distance herself from Moscow, the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine exacerbated scrutiny of her party’s links to Russia, handing her opponents a line of attack in the run-up to France’s presidential election later that year. 

During a bruising televised debate ahead of their April 24 presidential run-off, Macron launched a blistering attack on his far-right opponent, accusing her of effectively being on the Kremlin’s payroll owing to her party’s links with a Russian bank. 

“When you speak to Russia, you are not speaking to any foreign leader, you are talking to your banker,” Macron told Le Pen, arguing that her party’s loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin made her “dependent on Vladimir Putin” and incapable of “defending French interests”.  

Le Pen has repeatedly argued that she had no choice but to seek creditors abroad because French banks are reluctant to deal with her party – some on ideological grounds, others due to the party’s chronically unstable finances. 

The controversial loan was once again in the spotlight during her audition last week, a testy, four-hour-long grilling that failed to produce evidence of a political service rendered in exchange for the credit. Likewise, Le Grip’s report dwells at length on the Russian loan, without demonstrating a return of favours. 

“There is nothing, not a shred of evidence that would prove Russian influence over the National Rally,” Le Pen told reporters on Thursday, as rumours about the leaked report began to swirl. “This report passes judgement on my political opinions, not on any form of foreign interference,” she added, blasting a “political trial”. 

>> Read more: Trump, Farage, Le Pen: Why the West’s right wing loves Vladimir Putin

‘Boomerang’ 

By pushing for an inquiry late last year, the National Rally had hoped to deflect attention from its Moscow ties and put the focus on other parties’ links to foreign powers, whether Russia, the United States or China.  

Among the witnesses summoned to testify was François Fillon, the former conservative prime minister, who was quizzed on his role as an adviser to two Russian oil companies – one of them state-owned – after he quit politics in 2017. The former PM, who stepped down from both positions on February 25, the day after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, testified that he “never took a single cent of Russian money”.  

Other witnesses included the head of the DGSI, France’s internal security agency, who told a closed hearing that French parliamentarians of all stripes were prime targets of Russian espionage.

Despite the National Rally’s best efforts to focus the attention on other parties, the inquiry frequently returned to figures from its own ranks – including EU lawmaker Thierry Mariani, a former conservative minister and longtime Putin admirer who, on a trip to Crimea in 2015, declared its annexation free and fair in line with Le Pen’s own stance on the matter. 

“The inquiry’s immediate political consequence is to highlight, once again, Marine Le Pen’s pro-Russian stance – particularly on the annexation of Crimea,” French daily Le Monde observed on Friday. 

Speaking to the newspaper, Tanguy, the National Rally lawmaker who chaired the inquiry, conceded that he had been “naïve” in expecting another outcome. He also claimed he had been “betrayed” by Le Grip.

As Greens’ lawmaker Julien Bayou quipped, “The (National Rally) launched this inquiry to clear its name, but ended up with a boomerang in the face.”   

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Le Pen’s opposition to pension reform, focus on public order ‘pays off’ in polls

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Issued on:

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) party hopes to use the national crisis to continue its long ascent in French politics, adopting a balancing act as its strategy. RN opposes President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms along with most of the French public, while presenting itself as the party of order by condemning public disorder.

As hundreds of thousands took to the streets of France for the 10th day of demonstrations on Tuesday, everyone knew Le Pen has been opposed to Macron’s pension reforms – but the far-right politician and her party were conspicuous by their absence.

Le Pen has a habit of turning up at protests when the optics might benefit her – joining for example a major demonstration against anti-Semitism in Paris in 2018. But Le Pen has avoided the huge protests over pension reform, as have other senior RN figures like the party’s de jure leader Jordan Bardella.

When he disrupted French politics with his 2017 presidential victory, Macron ran as someone “neither on the left nor on the right” – a stance characterised by his trademark expression “en même temps” (at the same time). This is the apt phrase to encapsulate Le Pen’s approach to the strikes, as she has distanced herself from the protests while excoriating Macron for his pension reforms and his short-circuiting of parliament to pass the law.

Strategic ambiguity

Le Pen ran against Macron in the 2022 presidential elections opposing his policy of raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, proposing to keep it the same except for lowering it to 60 for those who started work before the age of 20. Over recent months she has called for a referendum on pension reform.

When Macron used the French constitution’s contentious Article 49.3 to evade a parliamentary vote on his pension reforms on March 16 – turning a tussle with the unions into a crisis – Le Pen demanded the dissolution of the National Assembly. She railed against Macron for amplifying the turmoil, telling AFP the following week that the president “chose to give the French people another slap in the face by saying: ‘look, everything that’s gone on will achieve nothing, nothing; there’ll be no dissolution of parliament, no cabinet reshuffle, no U-turn, nothing; we’ll just carry on as if nothing happened’”.

Alongside this fierce opposition to Macron, Le Pen condemned the setting on fire of Bordeaux town hall and a police station in Brittany’s Lorient during the protests on March 23.

Le Pen has also suggested there should be limits to the rubbish collectors’ strike and condemned the refinery blockades that have caused fuel shortages throughout France: “As soon as the rubbish collectors’ strikes causes health problems for the French population, I think the interior minister must intervene to ensure there are no health problems. It’s not possible,” she told BFMTV on March 20. “The same goes for the refineries. Blockades shouldn’t be allowed. […] I tell people they must express their opposition while respecting the law.”

This en même temps stands in sharp juxtaposition to the strategy of NUPES, the bloc of left-wing parties dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI). RN and NUPES were both beneficiaries of Macron’s malaise in the 2022 parliamentary election campaign – with RN becoming the opposition’s largest single party and NUPES the opposition’s largest inter-party alliance in the National Assembly.

RN and NUPES are at opposite ends of the political spectrum on cultural issues. But they share leftist economic stances couched in populist style – meaning they are competing for many of the anti-system voters who detest Macron’s liberal economics and aloof manner. Whereas RN displays ambivalence, NUPES vociferously backs the protest movement.

During the weeks of caustic parliamentary debate preceding Macron’s use of 49.3, NUPES MPs hurled fierce, sometimes incendiary rhetoric against Macron and his party. One LFI MP even called Macron’s Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt a murderer; Dussopt subsequently described Le Pen as “more republican” than NUPES MPs.

The leftist bloc tried to obstruct Macron’s bill by putting forward nearly 18,000 of the almost 20,500 parliamentary amendments tabled. But RN MPs were a quiet presence; even Macron’s Ensemble (Together) bloc put forward more amendments than they did.

‘Letting NUPES do all the shouting’

RN’s approach to pension reform is a strategy to “create a contrast with NUPES”, noted Sylvain Crépon, a lecturer at the University of Tours specialising in the French far right. “Staying calm while LFI MPs go off on one gives RN an air of managerial legitimacy.”

Since her party’s seismic breakthrough in the legislative polls last year, giving it 88 MPs compared to eight in the previous vote, Le Pen’s strategy has moved from the “de-demonisation” of her party to “normalisation” – a shift illustrated by her rule that all male RN MPs must wear a tie in the chamber

“Le Pen herself has been pretty much invisible from the debate, beyond making very few contributions, saying the retirement age should be kept where it is,” said Paul Smith, a professor of French politics at Nottingham University. “She’s letting NUPES do all the shouting and screaming while she sits back and lets them do all the work for her.”

Polls show RN is the party benefiting most from France’s crisis. RN’s leadership seems “trustworthy” on pensions for 40 percent of the population, the best score for any party, according to a Harris Interactive poll published on March 22. If early parliamentary elections took place, RN would gain the highest vote share at 26 percent, seven points up from their performance last time, according to an Ifop poll for Le Journal de Dimanche published on March 26.

“Le Pen’s strategy has paid off in terms of broad public appeal,” Smith put it.

On paper, her en même temps could be a difficult balancing act given that RN’s two core constituencies – bourgeois voters near the southeastern Mediterranean coast and working-class voters in the deindustrialised north – have divergent class interests and attitudes to the upheaval over economic reform.

“There is an uneasiness there about the strikes amongst that southeastern constituency; many traditional right-wing and far-right voters don’t like it,” Smith observed.

“But it’s not very difficult to square by saying the troublemakers are just anarchist black blocs, regardless of whether or not that’s the case,” Smith continued. “So keeping those two constituencies together is not so problematic for RN at the moment. It could well be a problem if they were elected.”

At the very least, Le Pen has four more years in the comfort of opposition before the 2027 presidential polls. But she certainly seems to think the pension reform crisis will benefit her – repeating over the past weeks of turmoil the same mantra: “RN are the real alternative! After Emmanuel Macron, it’ll be us!”

This article was adapted from the original in French.

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A dog day afternoon in French politics as Macron uses ‘nuclear option’ to raise retirement age

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France entered a period of political uncertainty on Thursday as French President Emmanuel Macron rammed a controversial pension reform through parliament without a vote by invoking a special executive measure. With the opposition braced for a no-confidence vote and the unions threatening more strikes, France witnessed a dramatic afternoon in politics.

The scenes in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, on Thursday appeared to have been lifted from historical dramas dating back to the country’s revolutionary past.

“Aux armes citoyens, formez vos bataillons,” sang opposition lawmakers as the chamber echoed with the rallying cry of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, rallying citizens to take up arms and form battalions. “S’il vous plait, s’il vous plait,” pleaded Yaël Braun-Pivet, the speaker of the National Assembly, ineffectually trying to get order in the house.

Far-left lawmakers in the National Assembly hold placards and sing La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, on March 16, 2023. The placards read “64 years old: No!” © Pascal Rossignol, Reuters

The session was suspended for two minutes before Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne could announce the triggering of Article 49.3 of the French constitution, which grants the government executive privilege to pass a bill without a vote. Triggering Article 49.3 also permits the opposition to respond with a no-confidence motion. 

“Today, we are faced with uncertainty that hinges on a few votes. We cannot take the risk of 175 hours of parliamentary debates collapsing,” said the 61-year-old French prime minister, raising her voice above the din. “On the basis of Article 49.3 of the constitution, I engage the responsibility of my government on the pension reform bill.”

With that, the likely unlikely happened in French politics on Thursday afternoon. President Emmanuel Macron was reelected last year after running on a campaign pledge to raise the retirement age. His reputation as an economic reformer hinged on his ability to make the French work longer by raising the official retirement age from 62, the lowest of any country in the EU.

The French president initially proposed a retirement age of 65, but that was brought down to 64 in January, when he floated the pension reform plan following months of talks with trade unions, employers and political parties.

For Macron, it was the mother of all reforms. For the opposition, particularly the far-left NUPES (New Ecological and Social Popular Union) alliance, it was the mother of all political opposition battles. France’s powerful unions were also on the opposition’s side, and they made it clear with eight nationwide strikes over the past three months, drawing over a million people on the streets almost every week.

While both sides played dare, the threat of Article 49.3 – or simply 49.3 as its popularly known – hung in the air. It was a nuclear option that neither side wanted and few imagined would come to pass. But now that it has, it leaves Macron weakened, Borne particularly vulnerable, and France in a state of shock as the politicians plot their next moves, keeping the country on edge.

An anxious weekend

Under the French constitution, once the prime minister invokes Article 49.3, the opposition has 24 hours to table a motion of censure.

Shortly after Borne’s address in the National Assembly on Thursday, Marine Le Pen said her far-right National Rally party would file a no-confidence motion. Communist lawmaker Fabien Roussel said such a motion is “ready” on the left.

For a no-confidence vote to be put to the chamber, the motion must be signed by at least one-tenth of the National Assembly’s 577 deputies.

Once the no-confidence motion is tabled, the National Assembly has to wait 48 hours before it is discussed in the chamber.

French law provides the 48-hour period to enable the government to convince undecided parties, and to allow lawmakers to make their decision after careful deliberations.

A no-confidence vote requires a majority, which means a minimum of 287 votes.

With a no-confidence motion set to be tabled on Friday, a vote is likely early next week, leaving the French in a state of heightened political anxiety over the weekend. What’s more, by opting for 49.3, Macron may have taken a safe option, but there’s no guarantee it will bring him any peace.

‘Reaping the harvest’ of the 2022 legislative elections

From the onset of the mass mobilisation against the pension reform, Article 49.3 was viewed as a risky option. But with the government unsure of getting the minimum 287 votes in the National Assembly needed to approve the pension bill, Macron chose to play it safe by opting for the nuclear option.

The conservative- dominated Senate approved the reform earlier Thursday in a move that was widely predicted. The political drama was always going to be in the lower house, where the president’s centrist La République en Marche (Renaissance) party does not have a majority.

With just hours to go before the National Assembly vote, Macron held a Cabinet meeting at the Elysée presidential palace to strategise the next move as the country waited with baited breath.

The decision to opt for 49.3 came just a few minutes before the scheduled vote in the National Assembly. The roots of the controversial decision, though, date back to the June 2022 legislative elections, when Macron’s alliance lost its parliamentary majority.

“The president was already weakened when his centrist grouping, Renaissance, failed to gain an absolute majority in the legislative elections back in June,” explained FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert. “We’re basically reaping the harvest of the last legislative elections. What we’re seeing right now are the vulnerabilities of a presidential movement or party when it doesn’t have a parliamentary majority.”

Thursday saw the article used for the 100th time under France’s modern constitution, which created an all-powerful president in 1958, overturning the previous one and its parliamentary system.

Under the modern fifth republic, 16 prime ministers have used the article and have managed to stay in power.

Macron’s government is expected to survive a no-confidence vote after the head of the conservative Republicans party in the opposition said it would vote with the president’s allies, which are 39 seats short of a majority in the 577-seat assembly.

But the anger on the streets is likely to undermine the very purpose of his pension reform. Raising the retirement age, Macron noted, was necessary to make the French economy more competitive and in tune with the rest of the developed world, where people are living longer and healthier lives with security benefits threatening to put budgets into deficits.

However the social fallout of Macron’s latest political gamble is unlikely to increase France’s economic competitiveness while highlighting its exceptionalism as a country deeply committed to maintaining the existing official retirement age.

By Thursday night, thousands of protesters had gathered on Place de la Concorde, across the river Seine from parliament. Police fired tear gas as angry demonstrators hurled cobble stones at security officers. In several other French cities, including Marseille, there were also spontaneous protests against the reform.

French unions called for another day of strikes and action against the reform on Thursday, March 23.

It was just one sign of things to come, according to Herbert. “If you thought things were already tense in France over the past couple of weeks, couple of months, stand by, because passions are about to be even more inflamed,” he warned.

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