Opposition parties filed two motions of no confidence against President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Friday following his decision. push an unpopular pension bill through Parliament without a full voteescalated a confrontation with protesters and labor unions, who have vowed to strike more.
Mr Macron’s decision, announced by his prime minister on Thursday in a raucous session in the National Assembly, the French House of Representatives, those who opposed the bill were angry, this will push the legal retirement age to 64, from 62.
Overnight, violent protests broke out in several French cities and protesters returned to the streets on Friday.
In Paris, for the second night in a row, thousands of mostly young protesters gathered at the Place de la Concorde, across from the National Assembly across the Seine, chanting slogans such as “Macron, you’re done” then, young people on the street! “
Danièle Obono, a lawmaker with the leftist France Unbowed party, said Mr Macron had achieved “a Pyrrhic victory, one that continues to damage and is hastening a crisis rather than ending it. “
“This is a social crisis that has turned into a democratic crisis,” she said.
Below provisions of the French Constitution, the pension bill will become law unless a motion of no confidence against the government succeeds in Congress. On Friday afternoon, several opposition groups said they had agreed to support a broad no-confidence motion put forward by a small group of independent lawmakers.
The split in Mr Macron’s opposition in Parliament has often left the opposition unable to unite after a single petition, and petitions submitted by independent lawmakers stand a good chance. to garner more support than usual.
Bertrand Pancher, the lead legislator on the independent group, told reporters: “It’s good for our country by voting against this unfair and ineffective pension reform. “This is about preserving our parliamentary democracy, which has been smeared, and social democracy, which has been scorned.”
The far-right National Rally Party submitted its own petition on Friday, although the party also said its lawmakers would vote on petitions led by others. submit. A vote on both motions is expected in the coming days, most likely on Monday.
Neither movement is considered very likely to succeed. Only a single motion of no confidence has been passed in France since 1958, when the current Constitution was adopted.
The mainstream conservative Republicans, while divided on support for the pension bill, have presented themselves as the party of stability and order and are reluctant to topple Mr Macron’s cabinet. Their support is crucial to getting through any movement.
“We will never add chaos to chaos,” Éric Ciotti, the head of the Republican party, said on Thursday.
The Senate, the upper house of the French National Assembly, passed the pension bill on Thursday morning. But concerned that the controversial bill was not getting enough support in the lower house, Mr Macron decided to pass it.
That invigorated months-long protest movement against a pension overhaul, which also increases the number of years workers have to pay into the system to get full pensions.
Fabien Villedieu, leader of Sud-Rail, a national association of railway workers, told the BFMTV news channel on Friday: “Type 49.3 has motivated everyone. Articles of the French Constitution that allows Mr. Macron to pass the bill without a full vote.
In Paris on Friday, protesters from the CGT, or General Confederation of Labor, France’s second-largest labor union, briefly blocked the entrance to the périphérique, the motorway that surrounds the French capital, where many streets are still ruined by piles of garbage because the garbage collectors’ strike is going on.
France’s main labor unions, which have held an unusually united front in their confrontation with the government, say they are more determined than ever and announced that they will hold the ninth day of the nationwide protests and strikes on March 23.
CGT also announced that strikers will close an oil refinery in Normandy over the weekend, potentially disrupting fuel deliveries to gas stations, and teachers unions have said they will go on strike. next week during the exam period.
That has raised concerns about longer, more disruptive walks. The biggest strikes to date have focused on single days that the government and the public easily weathered.
But mass marches, such as the garbage collector’s strike in Paris – the city said on Friday that on the 12th there were 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled up on the streets – have reinforced the government’s position. government and can do the same with unions’ response.
France’s interior minister on Friday said he had asked Paris police to summon garbage collectors to clean up trash, angering unions.
Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT, said on Thursday: “The government always starts by saying that it respects the right to strike, but they increasingly question that right.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told TF1 broadcaster on Thursday: “Until the last minute, my ministers and I have done everything we can to get a majority of votes in favor of this text. “With the President of the Republic, we want to go to the polls.”
Ms Borne said she was “shocked” by the shouting, chanting and derision of opposition lawmakers who greeted her in Parliament on Thursday and accused them of not having a credible pension plan.
“To assume that everything can be paid off with debt is not serious,” she said.
Le Monde, one of the leading French newspapers, wrote in its editorial on Friday that “the lesson for the government and for Emmanuel Macron is clear,” because “there are no reliable allies” for him in a Congress “dominated by extremists,” making the situation difficult. should be “changeable, explosive, and dangerous.”
But by forcing the bill to pass, Mr. Macron risks “promoting persistent bitterness, or even sparking violence,” the paper added.
Violent overnight protests across the country raised fears that opponents of the pension change could turn to more radical or unpredictable tactics.
At the Place de la Concorde on Friday night, protesters lit bonfires and used construction fences to set up barricades across from the line of police cars blocking the entrance to the bridge leading to Parliament.
About 10,000 people protested there on Thursday, in a mostly peaceful demonstration becomes more intense as night falls. Later, riot police dispersed the square, firing water cannons and tear gas at small groups of protesters who threw pebbles and dispersed into surrounding residential areas, burning trash as they went. Other cities across France were also rocked by violent protests overnight, including Rennes, Nantes, Lyon and Marseille.
Gérald Darmanin, interior minister, told RTL radio on Friday, more than 300 people were arrested across the country, most of them in Paris.
“Protesting is legal, protesting is legal,” Mr. Darmanin said. “But not chaos.”
Lawmakers opposed to Mr Macron are exploring other legal avenues to thwart his pension plans, but it is highly unlikely that any of them will work. Some have begun a procedure that allows lawmakers to initiate a referendum — an incredibly long and complicated process that has never been fruitful before.
Others have vowed to challenge the new pension law, if passed, before the Constitutional Council, a body that reviews the law to make sure it complies with the French constitution – mainly on the grounds that the government has introduced changes to it. pension changes into the Social Security budget bill and that some of them are not directly related to the budget.
But it’s not clear how the panel will ultimately rule, or what parts of the law it may repeal. So far, the government has expressed confidence that the core of the law will stand.
However, Boris Vallaud, a leading Socialist lawmaker, said in Parliament on Thursday that all options were left to block the implementation of the pension changes.
“We will do everything in our power,” he said.
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