One Against All

A few weeks after Emmanuel Macron became president, one of his supporters, the current chairman of the National Assembly foreign affairs committee, summed up the economic and social orientation to come: ‘Objectively, the problems of this country require solutions favourable to high earners’ (1). Since then, the privileged have shown their gratitude to their benefactor: between the first round of the 2017 presidential election and the first round in 2022, Macron saw his support among the richest go from 34% to 48%. When in power, the left has rarely demonstrated such bravura in satisfying its voters.

As Macron has also increased his popularity among the over-65s during his presidency, it’s easy to gauge the extent of the ‘courage’ he boasts about as he attempts to convince the country to accept a pension ‘reform’ whose main victims will be the working classes, who overwhelmingly voted against him. While his challenge to welfare benefits will spare the wealthy, and pensioners (even the best-off), it will force workers, whose healthy life expectancy is ten years less than that of senior executives, to work for an additional two years (2). The finishing line for those who are so often left worn out, exhausted and broken by work is once again being pushed further away. Compulsory labour will eat up the time for rest, personal projects, or simply deciding what to commit to.

Why do this when there is no financial necessity? Because instead of improving crumbling hospitals and schools, the government has chosen to ‘reduce the burden of pension expenses’ on the national economy at a time when military spending is set to soar (the armed forces minister predicts the defence budget will double between 2017 and 2030). A civilisation with such priorities is so debased that, unlike what we saw in November-December 1995 – when there was a huge social movement that somewhat resembles the current one – even some of the media best disposed towards the government have had to (temporarily) suspend their criticism of the ongoing demonstrations.

Prime minister Élisabeth Borne is determined to press on come what may, though she worries her plan could be ‘grist to the mill for the Rassemblement National’. The president who appointed her has no such qualms: ‘I won’t be a candidate in 2027,’ he said last December, ‘so I won’t be accountable for what happens’ (3). So posterity may well remember his arrogant presidency as having served mainly as a stepping stone for Marine Le Pen. Macron’s future is assured. If in the coming weeks he imposes his will on a majority of the population and earns his spurs as a ‘reformer’ with the right and the European Commission, he will then be able to talk about it in Davos and Qatar and set his sights on running Uber, BlaBlaCar or a major international investment bank.

.Translated by George Miller.

Notes.

(1Jean-Louis Bourlanges, quoted in L’Opinion, 29-30 September 2017.

(2According to the Observatoire des Inégalités, executives aged 35 can expect on average 35 further years of life without significant health problems, compared to just 24 years for manual workers of the same age.

(3Le Monde, 8-9 January 2023.

Serge Halimi is president of Le Monde diplomatique