France Has 49.3 Reasons to be Angry

Americans have a mixed reputation in Europe. On the positive side, we are friendly, excellent tippers, and healthy eaters (that last one is a joke! 😉). On the negative side, our country is so big that we often don’t know what’s going on outside our borders. France hears everybody’s news; Americans mostly just hear our own. So, imagine my shock this morning when I saw French news at the top of my Apple News feed!!!! Mon Dieu, what is going on!?!?

Well, France is raising its retirement age from 62 to 64, and the French people are one hot potato about it!

(All I want to know is if it’s safe to travel to France right now.)

If you have French friends or you’re headed to France this summer, here’s your little primer on the big issue. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is determined to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. This is the issue that has stopped the teachers from teaching, the garbage collectors from collecting, and the trains from training running. As of today, there have been nine union strikes since January. And currently there are spontaneous, (mostly) peaceful demonstrations just about everywhere. The French are a passionate people: passionate about soccer, wine, cheese, and POLITICS?! Bah, oui! Politics.

Protest sign reading, “Macron, take your retirement not ours.”

The French Political System

In the U.S., we have our two main political parties: the Republicans and the Democrats. In France, they have FIVE! That’s five MAJOR parties. They have an additional THIRTY-SEVEN smaller, national parties. That’s a lot of yard signs, boys and girls! For every ten French people, you could have fifteen political parties represented 😂. How does anything ever get done? When a US president has an unfavorable balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, it’s hard to push new legislation through. So, just imagine if there were many, multiple parties. Can you say deadlock!?

Article 49.3 to the Rescue!

In order to mitigate deadlock, France added an article to their constitution. Article 49.3 allows the executive power to force laws through parliament, bypassing the vote. In effect, it’s the ultimate political trump card. The rules are simple: the Prime Minister invokes 49.3 and the result is that the bill is adopted by parliament. Voilà.

But kind of not voilà, because 49.3 is what the French call a “nuclear legislative weapon.” (They actually call it this!) On the one hand, they get their bill adopted straight-away. On the other hand, they run the risk of parliament calling for a “no confidence vote.” If the majority of parliament signs a no confidence vote, the party in power has to take their toys and go home. Yes, that’s right. In effect, parliament gets knocked down and rebuilt like so many blocks of Jenga.

On March sixteenth, the Prime Minister of France, Elisabeth Borne, invoked 49.3 and narrowly survived the no-confidence vote. As a result, the majority of the French population are LIVID! Eighty percent of the French oppose the proposal, according to a national survey. Indeed, a slight majority of Macron’s own party opposes the reform!

Without a doubt, this is far from the first time that parliament has invoked 49.3. In fact, it’s been used eighty-seven times since its institution in 1958. In this case, however, Macron and his party triggered 49.3 despite knowing that the French people are against it en masse. The word “dictator” is thrown around liberally in radio interviews.

Left: Protester with a vest that reads, “Macron, go away! Three-fourths of the population didn’t vote for you.” Right: Sign reading, “Metro, work, tomb.” A play on the well-known French expression “Metro, boulot, dodo” (Metro, work, sleep… they somewhat rhyme in the French).

What’s the big deal? It’s just two years!

Indeed, there are good reasons why the French are angry about the two-year raise in retirement age. Reasons that Americans would certainly understand and maybe even agree with. They involve the way retirement works in France, the recent history of pension reform, and the general inequalities that exist in that society. Unquestionably, the French art de vivre à la français (the art of French living) plays into it as well. This is too much to cover in one blog post, but I could explore it in another one, if you’re interested.

Above all, remember what we said earlier: the French are passionate about politics. They make their voices heard through protests and massive union strikes. They are highly politicized and mobilized. America is just not. It takes a whole lot of injustice before we bother. To illustrate, France has on average 118 labor strike days per year. The forecast is always breezy with a 32% chance of labor strike! That’s more than any other OECD country. You can literally count the average number of U.S. strike days per year on one hand! (It’s five.)

Protests and strikes? Is it even safe to travel to France?

The answer is a resounding YES. France is, and will continue to be, perfectly safe to visit. In fact, if you’ll be spending time in the countryside or small towns, you’ll experience life as usual. I’ll be leading a group in Normandy and Brittany, and I know of others headed to the Loire Valley in the fall. There will be no impact.

And in the big cities?

Even in the big cities, the issue you’ll face is that of inconvenience. A gathering could cause you to take a different street. Or maybe the metro is running on a reduced schedule, causing delayed transit time. Again, labor strikes are common in France. One time it took me longer to get from Charles De Gaulle airport to my flat in Paris than it did to fly in from Barcelona! A strike had blocked the highway. The only difference is that currently there are more simultaneous strikes and protests than usual, thereby increasing the pain-in-the-butt-ness™ of the big cities. With any luck, this will all settle out before we pack our bikinis and speedos for summer vacay.

Did this article help you understand the current events in France? Do you have any thoughts about it? If so, feel free to leave a comment!