The French Population Revolts!

"[For the French] it was never about the age of retirement, but the balance between work and life."

"I don’t think in the history of the Fifth Republic, we have seen so much rage, so much hatred at our president."

"And I remember as a young student, I was in the streets of Paris in May ’68, and there was rejection of General de Gaulle but never that personal hatred."

"He [French President Emnanuel Macron] failed to sell his logic and rationality."

French political scientist Dominique Moïsi

French trade union officials take part in a demonstration in Paris on May 1, 2023, after the government pushed an unpopular pensions reform act through parliament.  Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

Once the state grants a privilege it takes a courageous -- or foolhardy -- government to revoke that privilege. Once an entitlement is given, it is taken for granted, and it is the rare population in a wealthy country that can be persuaded that such privilege be surrendered, even if the state insists it cannot afford what it terms is an unneeded luxury for its working population, that the nation's treasury burdened by the cost will be unsustainable. The French are extremely dedicated to their privileges; long vacation time, generous sick leave -- and early retirement. 

 

Re-elected in 2022, President Macron will not face election again until 2027. The standoff of the outraged public against a government determined to claw back some of the benefits that are the  highest in the OECD has become bitter and protracted. On Monday, May 1st, traditional Labour Day in many countries, the scheduled protests had an enormous turnout. 

 

Prefacing the protest French police gave due warning of a high risk of violence. In the event, there were 291 detentions across the country, 90 in Paris alone. Over one hundred police officers were injured in the May Day protests, 19 in Paris; one policeman with serious burns from a Molotov cocktail.

Policemen look on during Monday's demonstrations, with fierce clashes between security officials and protesters leading to dozens of arrests.   Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

 

French unions have joined the fray, leading to work stoppages, and uncollected garbage piling up on the streets. The French voting public see France’s Constitutional Council having raised the nation's retirement age from 62 to 64 as a hugely unacceptable attack on the French way of life, what they insist is the balance between private and public life. The enraged public simply will not have it. Until that time when tempers hot with rage, cool enough to finally accept what the government feels is inevitable. Or not.

French police faced off with hundreds of anarchists in Paris, clad in black, along with other cities during the union-led protests while hundreds of thousands of other workers staged their Labour Day rallies across Europe. In France, demonstrators pelted Paris police with Molotov cocktails and fireworks. Building materials were torched and bus stops smashed. 

Those protesters who were satisfied with marching peacefully, shouted at police responding with tear gas. Water cannon was used to extinguish a fire that blackened windows of nearby apartment buildings. When a fiery projectile struck one officer he was left badly injured. In Lyon and Nantes vehicles were set on fire, while business premises were trashed, leading to the arrest of close to 200 people. These are anything-but lawful protests against a duly elected democratic government.

 

Demonstrators at the May Day labour march, a day of mobilization against the French pension reform law, in Nantes on May 1, 2023.  Stephane Mahe, Reuters

"I invite all French men and women... to go out and catch the sun, to tan while pushing their baby strollers in the streets of Paris and the rest of the country."

"We are making sure 2023 goes down in the country's social history."

Francois Ruffin, member of parliament for the hard-left France Unbowed part