French pension reform: Macron's bittersweet victory

The security perimeter around the Constitutional Council on Friday was unprecedented. And an indication of how febrile the atmosphere in France has become.

The authorities had put up a high metal fence around the building, banned demonstrations in the area and deployed dozens of riot police to protect the building, located in the center of Paris.

The Council's nine members — the so-called "sages" — eventually gave their seal of approval to Macron's plans to increase the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. Only a few minor paragraphs, such as the creation of a transparency index for employees over 55, were rejected.

The institution also rejected a request by opponents for a referendum to maintain the minimum retirement age at 62, arguing that such a vote could not be held on something already enshrined in the law.

A divisive ruling

The ruling will hardly smooth ruffled feelings, and Macron's approval rating has slumped

"The government scored a huge point with yesterday's decision, which was the scenario of apocalypse for the reform's opponents," Bruno Cautres, political analyst at Paris-based think tank Cevipof-Sciences Po, told DW.

"And yet, it will be very difficult for President Emmanuel Macron to win back people's hearts in the short and medium term — the majority of the French now see him as someone who doesn't care about the will of the people," he added.

A mere 28% of the French, 4% less than in February, still have a positive opinion of Macron, according to a recent survey by polling institute Ipsos on behalf of weekly Le Point.

Since the draft law was put forward in January, regular demonstrations against the changes have gathered millions of people across France.

Polls show a large majority of the French is opposed to the reform.

The protests gained new strength in mid-March after the government used an exceptional constitutional power — the so-called 49.3 — to push the reform through the National Assembly without a final vote.

Only a successful vote of no-confidence could at that point have stopped the changes from passing Parliament.

Constitutional Council's decision 'could have turned out differently'

After two such ballots failed, opposition parties turned to the Constitutional Council.

They were hoping — in vain — that the highest court of appeal, in charge of checking the constitutionality of draft laws, would bring the reform down.  Both the content of the reform — which, for the claimants, goes against France's "policy of national solidarity in favor of pensioners" —  and the high number of exceptional judicial procedures used to speed up its parliamentary process could be grounds for the Council to reject the law, they thought.

Mathilde Philip-Gay, public law professor and co-director of the Center for Constitutional Law at Jean Moulin University in southeastern Lyon, thinks there was, indeed, a case for the Council to rule differently.

"The government used a fast-track procedure designed for budget laws to avoid a government shutdown — there was no such urgency for the pension reform," she told DW.

"The Council wrote in its decision that the government was free to choose the appropriate procedure, but I think it was irregular to use this expedited method," Philip-Gay added.

A crisis of legitimacy

Veronique Champeil-Desplats, professor for public law at Paris Nanterre University, agrees there were "legitimate doubts" regarding the procedure and calls the ruling at least partly political.

"This is likely to revive criticism against the institution's composition" she told DW.

The Constitutional Council's members are nominated in equal share by the president and the heads of the National Assembly and the Senate. As opposed to highest courts in countries such as the US, those members are not purely judges, but include former ministers and senior civil servants who don't necessary have a judicial background.

"Their latest decision, which can be contested on judicial grounds, could put an additional question mark over their legitimacy," Champeil-Desplats opined.

And the Council is not alone in having suffered a loss of legitimacy, thinks Emmanuelle Reungoat, assistant professor for political science specialized in social movements at Montpellier University in southern France.

"The current government has a very poor idea of democracy. Its reform has not been legitimized by parliament, the unions or public opinion," she told DW.

"Macron is continuing a trend toward going it alone that we have seen for years, where our leaders depict themselves as the sole guardians of order and deny people in the streets the right to participate in political decision-making," Reungoat added.

Loss of trust

But this doesn't come without risks.

"People are losing trust in their political leaders, which leads to ever higher voter abstention and more radical forms of protests with the aim of causing maximum destruction," Reungoat said.

Polls are showing that the past few months have also radicalized political views.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is faring better than ever. According to the same Ipsos survey, she's the second-most popular politician in France, with 39% seeing her positively — just one point behind the front-runner, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Another recent survey by polling institute Elabe for continuous news TV channel BFMTV indicates she would win both rounds of presidential elections if they were held now.

A silver lining?

But political analyst Cautres says such snapshots four years ahead of the next presidential elections should be taken with a pinch of salt.

"Macron has shown his capacity to bounce back as a leader and could turn things around — for example, by bringing people in to think about how to make the political system more democratic," he stated.

Constitutionalist Philip-Gay says changes to reestablish trust in the system might not even need a constitutional reform.

"Our current constitution says the prime minister, not the president, is the head of government," she explained.

"All the president needs to do is to retreat a bit more into the background and let the PM and parliament play a bigger role — it's a question of personality," she added.

But opponents to the pension reform are no longer willing to bank on President Macron's goodwill.

They are hoping a second request for a referendum — similar to the first, but including new ways of financing the pension system as one issue  — will get the go-ahead.

The Constitutional Council is set to give them an answer on May 3.