With difficulty, Mrs. Elizabeth Bourne's government survived the vote of no-confidence that took place in the French National Assembly on Monday evening, opening a new chapter in the political crisis in the French capital, following the adoption of a law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. This is a controversial law that French presidents have failed to approach or attempt to amend since the era of President Mitterrand. Only former President Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded in raising the age from 60 to 62 years, but he paid the price by failing in the presidential elections against the socialist candidate Francois Hollande. President Macron put all his political weight behind this law, yet he failed to convince public opinion and refused to receive representatives of trade unions to convince them of the necessity of this law. Finally, he failed to convince the French Parliament, so he was forced to use a constitutional article, 49.3, which allows him to issue laws without referring to Parliament. However, the vast majority of the French considered that the president used force and put everyone under a fait accompli, and this article that was developed in the Fifth Republic, the legislator wanted it to pass some necessary laws when there is political intractability, and therefore its use is carried out in the narrowest limits, but Macron expanded its use to the point of its decisiveness. To argue in favor of the president in a social law affecting all French.
The French President’s use of Article 49.3 made the equation between him and those opposing the law a zero equation, and it is difficult for any party to come out with a winner-take-all result, and since the French institutions failed to be an arbiter for those who feel injustice, the only voice available to the unions and the French left is the street and this What the leader of the far-left grouping, Jacques Melenchon, promised when he called for the overthrow of the government in the streets. Two methods are still available, but they are unlikely to lead to a result that satisfies the opponents of the law. The first is the Supreme Constitutional Court, which usually considers the constitutionality of laws, and this needs a month in order to issue its ruling and it is unlikely that it will invalidate the law. The second is the general referendum, but the procedures need a year in order to apply it, after that the approval of the president, and then the law becomes effective since General and it is illegal to drop it after this period. If we are faced with only two options, either the protest movement deepens and strikes increase, and includes vital sectors, and this has already begun to happen, as the French capital has become full of rubbish due to the strike of the sanitation workers, and transport workers, whether by land or air, as well as students, teachers and others, can join them. One of the sectors, or the second option, is that this protest movement will diminish with the passage of time and lose popular momentum, and this is what President Macron is betting on. It is certain that the tension in the French street leads to the emergence of extremists from the far right and the far left, who intend to attack public and private property, and they have become part of the daily French scene.
France is entering a phase of political crisis that is approaching a state of chaos, and this makes the French president for the remainder of his presidential term like a lame duck, if we borrow the American expression, but with a sharp French flavor.
Rami al-Khalifa al-Ali
