Emmanuel Macron of France faces vote of no-confidence after ramming through retirement bill without a vote

 

French protesters in Paris. CNBC/Getty.

President Emmanuel Macron of France faces a vote of no-confidence after ramming through an unpopular retirement bill without a vote. CNBC. Marcon has long wanted to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most workers, but calculated he did not have the support to pass the measure in the National Assembly. Instead he used a special constitutional power to ram through the change without a vote. Even members of his own party opposed Macron's action and it resulted in votes of no-confidence being called from both right and left wing parties opposed to Macron's centrist Renaissance party. If the no-confidence motions pass then Macron will be forced to dissolve the government and appoint a new Prime Minster or call for new elections. However, it seems unlikely that Macron will fail in a vote. Widespread protests have broken out across France against Macron and the measure. 

My Comment:

This strikes me as an incredibly foolish move by Macron and one that will essentially finish his political career regardless of the outcome of the no-confidence vote. Either way he will remain a lame duck President for the remainder of his term and an extremely unpopular one at that. 

The measure was always going to be unpopular as raising the retirement age is always going to be. Of course as an American I have to say it's fairly crazy to have the retirement age be 62, since in my case I will be 65 before I can retire with younger people having to retire at 66 or 67 depending on when they were born. Regardless, I certainly understand why people are so upset, nobody wants to keep working even as they age out of the workforce. 

Still, this action is going to cause dramatically more anger than the policy at hand due to the way it was passed. Instead of bringing the measure to a vote Macron passed it through article 49.3, which allows the executive to circumvent the legislature. It's fairly amazing that such a mechanism exists in France, a country that is supposed to be Democratic, but I guess it's not that different than American executive orders. 

Regardless, Macron didn't have the votes to pass this through normal means and pushed it through these special constitutional powers. The people that are opposed to the bill are furious and everyone else seems to feel that Macron greatly exceeded his powers and mandate here. Doing an end run around a legislative body for an unpopular policy is not the kind of thing a mature and respectful government does. 

As is tradition in France, the news was met with widespread protests and rioting. I also expect nothing to come of these protests as, again, France always protests so there is little pressure to be put on Macron. The anger here is real, but I sincerely doubt that the French government will be overthrown or anything, though, considering the circumstances, I would not be upset if it happened. 

I don't expect the government to fall to the vote of no-confidence either. The media is saying it's very unlikely to happen so, not being an expert on France, I have to defer to their judgement. It would be surprising if this was finally the thing that brought down Macron, even if his political fortunes are likely to change dramatically after this. I think his party, Renaissance, is probably screwed in the next election with both liberals and conservatives fleeing away from his party over this issue.