Macron's Mess

The French President's autocratic bent has imperiled the rest of his reform project

- Alan Katz

The French like to say they are ungovernable, invoking Charles de Gaulle’s exasperated (and likely apocryphal) comment about the difficulty of managing a country with 246 different cheeses. Emmanuel Macron, too, has called the French obstinately opposed to change.

Both presidents, former and current, might appear to be right given the images of the Bordeaux City Hall gate that was torched on March 23 or the cancellation of King Charles III’s visit over worries about violent protests coinciding with his stay in Paris. In truth, the French aren’t more averse to change than most.

But when they contest a particular policy such as Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64, opponents have only one way to really make a difference, which is to head to the streets. And unfortunately, one of the lessons of the yellow vest movement from a few years ago appears to be that adding violence to the mix increases your chance of forcing the government to back down. 

Macron himself is usually quick to seek a fight, often crossing a room to debate a heckler, happy to show his mastery of the details of his government’s proposals and confident that he can change minds. He appeared to push retirement reform under the same premises, arguing that he’d discussed it during his campaign and won reelection, giving the plan political legitimacy.

But that ignores Macron’s own admission from that election night last April: “Many of our compatriots voted for me today not out of support for the ideas I hold but to block those of the far right.”