France's Pension PlanMacron’s Government Hangs On to Power After No-Confidence Votes

A bill to increase the French national retirement age to 64 from 62 now becomes law, but opponents vowed to continue their fight amid widespread fury against President Emmanuel Macron.

Pinned
Roger Cohen

Reporting from Paris

Macron’s retirement overhaul becomes the law of the land.

The French National Assembly rejected a no-confidence motion against the government of President Emmanuel Macron, ensuring that a fiercely contested bill raising the retirement age to 64 from 62 becomes the law of the land.

The motion received 278 votes, nine short of the 287 needed to pass. The close result reflected widespread anger at the overhaul to the pension law, at Mr. Macron for his apparent aloofness and at the way the measure was rammed through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself. France’s upper house of Parliament, the Senate, passed the pension bill this month.

A second no-confidence motion, filed by the far-right National Rally, failed on Monday as well, with only 94 lawmakers voting in favor.

The change, which Mr. Macron has sought since the beginning of his first term in 2017, has provoked two months of demonstrations, intermittent strikes and occasional violence. It has split France, with polls consistently showing two-thirds of the population opposing the overhaul.

In the end, there were just enough votes from the center-right Republicans, who last year proposed raising the retirement age even higher, to 65, to salvage the law and the government led by Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister. The government would have fallen had the censure motion been upheld, obliging Mr. Macron either to name a new government or dissolve the National Assembly, or lower house, and call elections.

But information later published by the National Assembly shows that 19 lawmakers from the Republican party voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, far more than expected.

The protests and anger across France seem unlikely to abate in the weeks ahead. They appear certain to mark Mr. Macron’s second term, just as the Yellow Vest protest movement marked his first. Behind both movements lurks a resentment of the president’s perceived elitism, compounding anger at the specific measures that sparked the protests.

Before the vote, Charles de Courson, an independent lawmaker belonging to the group that filed the no-confidence motion, told Ms. Borne, “You failed to unite, you failed to convince.”

Such was the resistance to the proposed change that rather than putting the pension overhaul to a vote in the National Assembly, as he had insisted he would do, Mr. Macron opted for a measure, known as the 49.3 after the relevant article of the Constitution, that allows certain bills to be passed without a vote but that exposes the government to censure motions such as the one on Monday.

This is the 11th time in less than a year that the government has resorted to the 49.3, leading to a growing feeling that democratic process is being circumvented, even if the measure is legal under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, fashioned to create the all-powerful presidency sought by Charles de Gaulle.

Mr. Macron’s decision redoubled anger across the country and reinforced an impression of top-down rule. He declined to meet with labor union leaders in recent weeks, leaving them incensed.

Before the vote, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right National Rally party and a fierce critic of raising the retirement age, told the television network BFMTV, “For months now, the government has been playing with matches in a gas station.” After the vote, Ms. Le Pen told reporters that with only nine votes short, the government had “dodged a bullet.”

Speaking at the National Assembly, she said that Mr. Macron should still dismiss his prime minister. “Politically, the president of the Republic cannot act as though nothing had happened,” Ms. Le Pen said.

The logic of the retirement age change, at a time when people are living longer and most European states have raised retirement to 65 or over, was unpersuasive to many French people fiercely attached to the country’s cherished work-life balance.

They could not see the urgency of the measure at a time of rising inflation and multiple economic pressures stemming from the war in Ukraine. The pension system is not on the brink of bankruptcy, even if its finances over the medium term look parlous.

Many people in France perceived the imposition of a longer working life, albeit still shorter than that of their neighbors, as an attack on the social solidarity at the heart of the French model and a maneuver by the rich to move France closer to the unbridled capitalism they associate with the United States.

But another, quieter France saw things differently. Aurore Bergé, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party, told the National Assembly that Mr. Macron’s pension overhaul “required courage,” because asking the French to work longer is “always harder” than making promises “with money that we don’t have.”

Mr. Macron was adamant. He argued that retirement at 62 was untenable as life spans lengthen. The math, over the longer term at least, simply did not add up as the ratio of active workers to the retirees they are supporting through payroll taxes keeps dropping.

“If we do not solve the problem of our retirees, we cannot invest in all the rest,” Mr. Macron said last year. “It’s nothing less than a choice of the society we want.”

However, the government’s arithmetic is fiercely contested by labor leaders who argue that there are other solutions, including taxing the country’s millionaires and their dividends.

Now Mr. Macron, who cannot stand for re-election in 2027, believes he has laid the foundation for the huge investments in defense, green energy, schools and technology essential to France’s future. But with more than four years of his term remaining, he faces a country more hostile to his rule than ever before.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 3:57 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

French television showed images of overturned trash cans and small fires in the Odéon neighborhood of central Paris, between the Latin Quarter and the upscale Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood.

Image
Credit...Constant Méheut/The New York Times
Catherine PorterConstant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 3:53 p.m. ET

Catherine Porter and

Reporting from Paris

Nine votes: A thin margin of lawmakers prevents the ouster of Macron’s government.

Image
Lawmakers at the National Assembly in Paris on Monday protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s retirement overhauls.Credit...Lewis Joly/Associated Press

When the final vote was counted on a no-confidence motion against President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Monday, the shock was not that it did not pass — few expected that it would.

The jolt came with how narrowly Mr. Macron’s government hung on to power.

In the grand chambers of the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, the vote was 278 in favor of a motion by independent lawmakers — nine short of the 287 needed to bring down the government. (A second no-confidence motion, filed by the far-right National Rally, failed as well, with only 94 lawmakers voting in favor.)

Yaël Braun-Pivet, the National Assembly’s president, announced, “The censure motion does not pass,” and the parliamentary chamber erupted in boos.

The reaction underlined the fury gripping a nation over Mr. Macron’s pension bill, which includes a push to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62.

Members of the hard-left France Unbowed party promptly held up signs that read: “64 years. It’s a No,” and “Meeting on the Street.”

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right National Rally party and a fierce critic of raising the retirement age, said the government had “dodged a bullet.”

Lawmakers exploded from the chamber, rushing downstairs to declare that they would continue fighting to a throng of waiting reporters.

“Only nine votes were missing,” Mathilde Panot, the parliamentary leader of France Unbowed, declared before a nest of microphones in the gilded ground-floor room where reporters often hang out and lawmakers pontificate.

“Nine small votes,” she repeated, calling on Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to resign and summarizing the situation as a “political crisis that Emmanuel Macron created himself.”

The Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said Mr. Macron could not continue as though that scathing vote hadn’t happened. “If he wants to breathe some oxygen,” Mr. Faure told another group of reporters nearby, “he has no choice but to repeal the bill.”

Off in a corner stood Pierre-Henri Dumont, a lawmaker with the center-right Republicans, who were the kingmakers of the vote. In recent days, his party leadership had tried desperately to rein in rebellious members threatening to help bring down the government, even threatening at one point to eject them from Parliament.

In the end, about one-third rebelled, but not enough to make the difference.

“If I am expelled because I did not follow the instructions,” Mr. Dumont said quietly, “I will accept the consequences.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 3:26 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The police are warning protesters to leave Place Vauban.

Image
Credit...Yves Herman/Reuters
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 3:22 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Several lawmakers from the hard-left party France Unbowed have joined the protest, to show their support but also in the hope that their presence will prevent episodes of police violence, said Hadrien Clouet, a France Unbowed representative. Several clashes erupted at the start of the protest.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 3:22 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

A bill to raise the retirement age has become law. What happens next?

Image
Protesters opposed to retirement overhauls at the Place Vauban in Paris on Monday.Credit...Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock

Lawmakers opposed to President Emmanuel Macron and his retirement overhaul are exploring legal avenues for thwarting his plans, but it is very uncertain that any would work. Some have started a procedure that would enable lawmakers to initiate a referendum — an extremely long and complex process that has never come to fruition before.

Others have vowed to challenge the new pension law before the Constitutional Council, a body that reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution — mainly on the grounds that the government put the pension overhaul into a social security budget bill and that some retirement changes are not directly budget related.

But it is unclear how the council would ultimately rule, or which parts of the law it might strike down. So far, the government has expressed confidence that the core of the law would stand.

Other lawmakers and union leaders say only renewed strikes and demonstrations will convince Mr. Macron not to implement his pension overhaul.

“Since the process of parliamentary censorship has not worked, it is time to move on to popular censorship,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist leader and founder of the France Unbowed party.

There is a precedent: In 2006, the French government scrapped a contested youth-jobs contract even though it had become law. But it is unclear if Mr. Macron will buckle to continued pressure from the street.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 3:21 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The National Assembly has just published a detailed breakdown of the vote, which shows that 19 mainstream conservative lawmakers from the Republican party voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, far more than initially expected. That explains how it came so close to passing.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 3:17 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Tension is palpable on the Place Vauban where hundreds of mostly young protesters have gathered for a demonstration. The plaza is completely cordoned off by anti-riot police, making it difficult to access. Protesters are calling on the police to clear the entrances.

Video
Video player loading
CreditCredit...Constant Meheut/The New York Times
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 2:46 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the National Rally party, told reporters that with only 9 votes short, the government had “dodged a bullet.” Speaking at the National Assembly, she said that Mr. Macron should still dismiss his prime minister. “Politically, the president of the Republic cannot act as though nothing had happened,” she said.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 2:27 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The second no-confidence motion has failed as well, with only 94 lawmakers voting in favor. It had been put forward by the far right and was widely expected to fall short.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 2:18 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Aurélien Pradié, a Republican lawmaker who led a small rebellion within his party to the pension bill, told BFMTV that the vote's result did nothing to change the state of tension. “One would have to be absolutely blind to be content and satisfied with this situation,” he said, as he urged Mr. Macron to withdraw the overhaul, even now that it had passed.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 2:06 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The outcome of the vote suggests that some 20 representatives from the center-right party Les Republicains supported the no-confidence motion, or about one-third of their parliamentary group. That’s a big number for a party that had originally reached an alliance with the government on the pension bill.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 2:02 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Mathilde Panot, a top lawmaker for the leftist France Unbowed party, said after the vote that “nothing has been settled” and said the prime minister should resign.

Image
Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 2:03 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Speaking to reporters at the National Assembly, she said that “everything will continue in this country to ensure that this reform is withdrawn.” And she urged Mr. Macron to either scrap his overhaul, or to consult the people by calling for a referendum or calling for new parliamentary elections.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:56 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Lawmakers are now voting on the second no-confidence motion, the one filed by the far-right National Rally party. But there is virtually no chance it will pass, as most opposition lawmakers vowed not to support a motion put forward by the far right.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 1:52 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The no-confidence motion failed by a very narrow margin -- only nine votes. It needed 287 votes to pass but got only 278.

Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 1:52 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

After the announcement that the censure motion did not pass, many France Unbowed members held up the same printed signs they had last Friday, that state: “64 years: It’s a no.”

Image
Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:50 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

“Resignation! Resignation!” members of the hard-left party France Unbowed holler.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:48 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The results of the vote are about to be released. A no-confidence motion will need 287 votes to be passed. About 260 votes are already secured thanks to the support of a broad alliance stretching from the far left to the far right. The success of the motion depends on the votes of members of the center-right party The Republicans.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:32 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

A crowd of reporters has flooded the Room of the Four Columns, where parliamentary leaders comment on the session and the crucial vote currently taking place.

Image
Credit...Constant Mehéut/The New York Times
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:18 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Judging by posts on social networks, it seems that many lawmakers from the left have already voted in favor of the no-confidence motion. Many of them could be seen exiting and entering the chamber during the session, possibly to go and cast their ballots.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 1:15 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The session is now over as Ms. Borne ends her speech. Voting will last roughly 30 minutes and a result will be announced shortly after 6:45 p.m. Paris time.

Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 1:12 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne maintains the retirement bill, in its final form, constituted a “compromise.” “You are deaf,” hollers one far-right lawmaker. Ms. Borne, who is as tough as she is defiant, trudges on with her speech, despite waves of interruptions.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 1:06 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Ms. Borne takes hit at the opposition parties, highlighting their “duplicity.” She pointed out that the opposition filed thousands of amendments to slow down the debate and prevent a vote on the pension bill, and now complain that the government is rushing through the bill.

Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 1:00 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

As Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne began speaking, most of the far left lawmakers exited the chamber. The far-right have been interrupting her speech, hollering “49.3,” referring to the part of the Constitution that allowed President Macron's goverment to force the retirement change through Parliament.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 12:58 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne's speech is the last before lawmakers vote on the two no-confidence motions. Ms. Borne will defend her government’s move to push through the pension bill without a vote in the National Assembly — as well as defend her own legitimacy as a prime minister. But many in the government coalition are not present in the chamber.

Image
Credit...Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 12:56 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Now the prime minister is taking the podium.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 12:51 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the far-right National Rally, says that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne should resign regardless of the result of the no-confidence vote. Speaking to the BFMTV news channel outside of the assembly room, Ms. Le Pen accused the government of “playing with matches in a gas station” by pushing the pension overhaul through despite widespread popular opposition.

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 12:43 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

France’s mainstream conservatives may hold the key to the confidence vote.

Image
Police officers guarding the constituency office of the lawmaker Eric Ciotti, the head of France’s Republican Party, in Nice, after it was vandalized over the weekend. Credit...Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As France’s lower house of Parliament prepares to vote Monday on two no-confidence motions against President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet, the outcome rests largely on the 61 mainstream conservative lawmakers who belong to France’s Republican Party.

The intentions of the other major players are clear. One side is a centrist coalition that supports Mr. Macron. The other presents a striking juxtaposition — the far-right party of Marine Le Pen and a coalition of left-wing parties. Though the groups disagree on almost everything, they both want to topple Mr. Macron’s cabinet and are willing to vote for the same motion to do so.

In the middle, undermined by internal divisions, are the Republicans.

The Republicans are the only likely source of the roughly 30 or so votes that are missing to pass the no-confidence motion filed by independent lawmakers — another motion, from Ms. Le Pen’s party, is much less likely to attract broad support — just as they were the only party that could have given Mr. Macron enough votes to pass his pension bill in the first place.

In both cases, the party has been torn by disagreements and has come under increasing pressure from opponents of Mr. Macron’s pension overhaul.

One of Mr. Macron’s main political strategies has been to shift rightward, poaching the ideas of mainstream conservatives, weakening their party and leaving it vulnerable to internal strife.

The party’s leadership, which backed the pension bill in exchange for some concessions, has said that it did not want to topple the government. As of Monday morning, most of the party’s lawmakers were expected to follow that line.

Voting for a no-confidence motion alongside far-right and far-left lawmakers with radically different priorities and an inability to work together was absurd, Éric Ciotti, the head of the party, told the BFM Côte d’Azur news channel.

“What a baroque, grotesque, even clownish combination,” said Mr. Ciotti, whose constituency office in Nice, on the French Riviera, was tagged and pelted with stones on Saturday.

But a small number of party rebels, many of them from rural areas of France, are challenging that line. While not opposed to the pension bill in its entirety, they had fought to extend exceptions for people who start working at a young age, allowing them to retire earlier, but their demands were not fully met.

Aurélien Pradié, a Republican lawmaker from the Lot area of southwestern France who has become the rebels’ de facto leader, announced on Monday that he would vote in favor of the no-confidence motion.

He estimated that about 15 Republican lawmakers might vote along with him — fewer than the number required for a no-confidence motion to succeed. But, he added, if the vote was in doubt, “it is because there is a deep democratic rupture in our country” Mr. Pradié told Europe 1 radio.

The divisions among the Republicans have put the party in an uncomfortable position. The party draws its lineage to Charles de Gaulle and has historically advocated for free market policies, and social and fiscal conservatism.

The last time the party was in power, when President Nicolas Sarkozy was president from 2007 to 2012, the government raised the legal retirement age to 62, from 60. During last year’s presidential election, the party’s platform called for raising the retirement age to 65 — a greater overhaul than Mr. Macron’s current proposal, which would raise it to 64.

Republican lawmakers who control the Senate, France’s upper house, passed Mr. Macron’s pension bill without much issue.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 12:38 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Cyrielle Chatelain, of the Green party, warned the government that social unrest was brewing. “Don’t close your eyes when you see the placards appearing everywhere in France,” she said. She added that it was a reminder of the Yellow Vest protest movement, which put France on edge four years ago, after the government tried to raise fuel taxes.

Image
Credit...Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 12:24 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

We are now a little more than halfway down the list of speakers before the government gets to respond. Then the lawmakers will vote, first on the motion filed by the group of independent lawmakers — the one that has a stronger likelihood of succeeding, even if it is not expected to — and then on the one filed by the far right.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 12:22 p.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Boris Vallaud, the leader of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, points out the “contempt” that he said President Emmanuel Macron and his government have shown throughout the debate on the pension bill. Opponents of Mr. Macron have long criticized him for his mighty presidency, denouncing his attempts to limit debate in Parliament.

Aurelien BreedenCatherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 12:13 p.m. ET

Aurelien Breeden and

Reporting from Paris

Lawmakers from the left, right and center jab at Macron.

Image
One lawmaker, Laure Lavalette of the far-right National Rally party, spoke on Monday before the National Assembly.Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock

The far-right National Rally party filed its own no-confidence motion.

One member, Laure Lavalette, who represents the Var area of southeastern France, started by trying to dress down Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne.

“How dare you?” she said sharply. “How dare you?”

Ms. Lavalette confirmed that her parliamentary group would support both no-confidence motions. That means one motion will most likely get at least 250 votes. As a reminder, 287 votes are needed to reach a majority and bring down the government. But getting these extra 30 or so votes will be hard.

Responding to rumors that President Emmanuel Macron would call for new parliamentary elections if his cabinet is toppled, Ms. Lavalette chided, “Chiche” — a familiar way of saying, “Go on, I dare you.” She said that new elections would only make the far right stronger “because more than ever I am convinced that we are the real alternative.”

Members of the far left were noticeably disengaged as she spoke, tapping on their phones and talking to one another.

Ms. Lavalette ended her speech by reminding all what was at stake — a new government that might have a far-right majority. Failing that, her party is building for the next national elections and the presidency in four years.

“Hold firm. Hold firm,” she said. “Two thousand twenty-seven is not too far off.”

On the left, the parliamentary leader of the France Unbowed party, Mathilde Panot, swiped at Mr. Macron at the microphone, reminding the room that after his last election he had promised to vote in a less top-down way.

“Your word no longer has any worth,” she said, before repeating what she said last week: “This is the first day of the end of Macron’s rule.”

She accused Mr. Macron of “plunging the country into a crisis” and compared him to the Roman emperor Caligula. “You serve no purpose except to cause harm,” Ms. Panot said. “If your government falls this evening, the French would simply be relieved.”

Olivier Marleix, the leader of the center-right the Republicans party, also spoke. After reaching an alliance with the government to support the pension bill, he acknowledged that many in his parliamentary group did not support the bill. He then said his party, which has portrayed itself as a force of stability, would not support a no-confidence vote. But several party representatives have publicly said they would.

Mr. Marleix took shots at the left-wing parties and the far right for voting the same on the no-confidence motion. “We will not be witnesses to this barbaric wedding, between those who are comfortable with creating chaos and those who, silently, have no proposal for saving pensions but hope to profit from the chaos,” he said.

He was treading a fine line: opposing the votes to bring down the government while criticizing the president. “Let’s be clear,” Mr. Marleix said. “The problem today is not the retirement reform, but the president of the republic.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Catherine PorterTom Nouvian
March 20, 2023, 12:08 p.m. ET

Catherine Porter and

Strikes continue as France braces for the outcome of the vote.

Image
Scattered strikes are continuing around France on Monday as the country prepares for the National Assembly’s vote.Credit...Valentine Chapuis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Scattered strikes continued around France on Monday as the country braced for a vote in the National Assembly that could either bring down the government or further inflame fury on the streets.

In northern France, workers at the country’s largest oil refinery remained on a strike that began over the weekend, evoking flashbacks of the strikes that caused long lines at French gas stations last fall.

Air traffic controllers were on strike, causing cancellations of some flights into Paris and Marseilles, with disruptions expected to continue until Thursday morning, France’s air traffic authority announced.

And with trash workers still staying off the job in some places, sacks of putrid, wet garbage continued to slump across sidewalks and spill out of bins around a handful of cities. In Paris, at least, the piles appeared to have stopped growing after the police there enacted some back-to-work orders to ensure the collection and treatment of garbage.

About 9,300 metric tons on Monday clogged the streets of the neighborhoods in Paris that have public garbage collection, down from 10,000, according to Paris City Hall.

For graduating high school students across the country, the strikes offered added stress. More than 500,000 students were scheduled to begin the baccalauréat, the grueling, finishing exam that counts for about 30 percent of their final grades.

Last Friday, four teachers unions called for a hardening of the strike to include educators supervising the test. But the leaders of the country’s two largest unions warned against it, and the Minister of Education announced that he would mobilize extra supervisors to ensure the tests could go ahead.

At some high schools, administrators were scrambling before the exams were to begin on Monday afternoon.

Smoking a cigarette between classes outside the Lycée Charlemagne in central Paris, Isabelle Servolin, 54, a history teacher, said the dean had just asked her to work a few extra hours to supervise the exam.

“I support the strikes,” she said. “I told her I wouldn’t do it.”

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 11:50 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Ms. Bergé says that Mr. Macron’s pension overhaul “required courage,” because asking the French to work longer is “always harder” than making promises “with money that we don’t have.” Mr. Macron’s government and party have argued that the opposition do not have a credible plan to balance the pension system, an accusation that opposition parties reject.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 11:39 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Aurore Bergé, the leader of President Emmanuel Macron’s party in the National Assembly, has taken the floor. She harshly criticizes the opposition parties, from the far left to the far right, saying their common support for a no-confidence motion marks their alliance. The motion, she says, under the boos of the opposition benches, “aims to block” the country.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien BreedenConstant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 11:28 a.m. ET

Aurelien Breeden and

Reporting from Paris

The descendant of a revolutionary takes on Macron.

Image
Charles de Courson, center, during a debate at the National Assembly in February.Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock

Charles de Courson descends from a revolutionary leader who in 1793 voted in favor of the beheading of King Louis XVI.

More than two centuries later, a descendant of that revolutionary has vowed to bring down the French government. Mr. de Courson, an independent lawmaker, filed one of the two no-confidence motions over President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul.

On Monday, Mr. de Courson took the floor at the start of the debate in the National Assembly and said that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne had promised in July, when she was nominated by Mr. Macron, to govern in a spirit of dialogue and consultation — a promise she did not keep, he says.

“You failed to unite, you failed to convince, and so you gave in to the easy path and avoided the sanction of the vote,” he said.

Mr. de Courson ended his speech by formally introducing the first no-confidence motion.

In a soft voice, he lashed out at the government for trying to circumvent the usual parliamentary process of debating and voting. The president of the National Assembly turned off his microphone toward the end of his speech, because his allocated time was over.

He continued nonetheless, under the applause of the opposition benches.

A correction was made on 
March 20, 2023

An earlier version of this item misstated the French king whose beheading was supported by an ancestor of Charles de Courson. It was Louis XVI, not Louis XIV.

How we handle corrections

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 11:16 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

So far, the atmosphere is the National Assembly is very different from last week, when the government pushed through the bill without a vote. Lawmakers no longer bang their desks or sing the national anthem. They listen carefully and clap their hands every few minutes. It feels like a normal session, except legislators are voting on bringing down the government.

Catherine PorterConstant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 11:07 a.m. ET

Catherine Porter and

Reporting from Paris

The National Assembly was a hive of anticipation before the vote.

Image
Bertrand Pancher, left, and Charles de Courson, right, lawmakers in the National Assembly spoke on Monday with reporters.Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock

Shortly before a parliamentary session on the two no-confidence motions began on Monday, the French National Assembly was a hive of anticipation.

Standing in a nest of outstretched microphones in one grand marble room, where journalists often interview lawmakers, Bertrand Pancher was holding court.

Mr. Pancher, the president of the group of independent lawmakers that filed one of the two motions, said he was confident his team had convinced enough lawmakers to pass the motion. A majority vote would bring down President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

“Right now, the wind is at our back,” he said.

Nearby, another lawmaker, Alexis Corbière from the far-left France Unbowed party, was telling reporters that no matter what the outcome, “we need to stay mobilized.”

Mr. Corbière had been on the streets over the weekend, he said, and seen that popular anger had “crystallized” against Mr. Macron for his government’s use of a constitutional shoehorn to pass his the highly unpopular pension bill. “That can deliver bad consequences,” he predicted.

He added, “Even if the motion does not pass, the country has already passed it.”

A Socialist Party member, Boris Vallaud, had barely stepped into the room when he was swarmed by reporters.

“If you don’t have the majority in the country, nor in the national unions, not in the National Assembly, you need to withdraw the reform,” he said. “It’s the only way to respect the majority.” The French population, he said, was “tired and used” and “that is never good.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 11:06 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

The National Assembly session just started. Soon we will know whether President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet stays or goes.

Catherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 11:04 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Lawmakers have begun to filter in to the crimson-chaired National Assembly chambers. There is none of the noise and fury of last Friday’s session from the France Unbowed party. Government ministers have begun to take their seats at the first row. If they are nervous, they are not letting on — greeting one another warmly, exchanging the French “bise.”

Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 11:03 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Aurélien Pradié, a Republican lawmaker who has been leading a small rebellion against the pension bill within his party, said that he “did not take lightly” the decision to approve a no-confidence motion but said that it was necessary. “Who is causing chaos today?” he asked. “It’s the way this country is governed.”

Roger Cohen
March 20, 2023, 10:49 a.m. ET

Macron seems increasingly alone as he confronts an angry France.

Image
President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age in France to 64 from 62 has provoked two motions of no confidence against his cabinet.Credit...Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

PARIS — “We have a president who makes use of a permanent coup d’état.” That was the verdict of Olivier Faure, the leader of the French Socialist Party, after President Emmanuel Macron rammed through a bill raising the retirement age in France to 64 from 62 without a full parliamentary vote last week.

In fact, Mr. Macron’s use of the “nuclear option,” as the France 24 TV network described it, was entirely legal under the French Constitution, crafted in 1958 for Charles de Gaulle and reflecting the general’s strong view that power should be centered in the president’s office, not among feuding lawmakers.

But legality is one thing and legitimacy another. Mr. Macron may see his decision as necessary to cement his legacy as the leader who left France prepared to face the rest of the 21st century. But to many French people it looked like presidential diktat, a blot on his reputation and a blow to French democracy.

Parliament has responded with two motions of no confidence in Mr. Macron’s government.

Six years into his presidency, surrounded by brilliant technocrats, Mr. Macron cuts a lonely figure, his lofty silence conspicuous at this moment of turmoil.

“He has managed to antagonize everyone by occupying the whole of the center,” said Jacques Rupnik, a political scientist. “Macron’s attitude seems to be: After me, the deluge.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 10:33 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Bertrand Pancher, the leader of the independent lawmakers who filed the no-confidence motion that is more likely to succeed, told reporters that “it could come down to a few votes.” He said that the only way for Mr. Macron to address the current political crisis was to “give the people their voice back” and put the retirement plan to a referendum.

Constant MéheutCatherine Porter
March 20, 2023, 10:31 a.m. ET

Constant Méheut and

Reporting from Paris

Spontaneous and sometimes violent protests broke out ahead of Monday’s vote.

Image
A barricade burned during a protest in Nantes, western France, on Saturday, two days after the government pushed through its pension changes.Credit...Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In Paris, they lit smoke bombs in the middle of a large shopping mall. In the southeastern city of Lyon, they tried to break into a town hall. In Nantes, to the west, they blocked a highway.

Thousands of people have joined spontaneous, sometimes violent, demonstrations in France since the government pushed through a widely unpopular pension bill last Thursday without a full vote of Parliament, further igniting anger at the measure across the country.

The fresh protests — after two months of organized national demonstrations against the plan — have added to pressure on reluctant lawmakers to support a no-confidence motion that comes to a vote on Monday in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The unrest has also signaled that demonstrations that had so far proved mostly peaceful could develop into something more explosive.

“If the motion is not passed, people will continue to fight to reverse the reform,” said Raphaël Masmejean, 31, who joined an unofficial protest on Friday night at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where protesters lit a large fire in view of the National Assembly building.

His friend, Etienne Chemin, 30, said that the months of previous marches, largely organized by labor unions, had failed to get the government to back down. He suggested that more confrontational protests were now needed, pointing to the Yellow Vest movement that put France on edge four years ago and forced the government to repeal a contested fuel tax.

“It made things change a little more,” he said.

Following the pattern of the day before, when some 10,000 people demonstrated in the same square hours after President Emmanuel Macron sidestepped Parliament to enact the measure, the gathering on Friday turned violent as night fell. Protesters threw bottles and fireworks at phalanxes of police officers in riot gear surrounding the square, prompting officers to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd.

After that unrest, the Paris police banned protests on the Place de la Concorde, citing “risks of disturbances to public order.” But gatherings continued elsewhere in Paris and around the country over the weekend, with dozens of protesters arrested.

The objective, many demonstrators said, was to increase pressure on lawmakers to punish Mr. Macron’s government by passing Monday’s no-confidence motion. While Mr. Macron would remain in office, his prime minister and cabinet would be ousted, and his pension plan defeated, if the motion were to pass.

“We are here to reach 30,” said Candice Vandi, a 21-year-old master’s student protesting on the Place de la Concorde, referring to the approximate number of lawmakers who could swing the no-confidence motion toward a majority, according to political prognosticators.

Pressure is especially high on representatives of the center-right Republicans, whose party is seen as containing crucial swing votes. On Saturday night, protesters threw stones at the office of the party president in Nice, on the French Riviera, and left a message scrawled on a wall implying these might not be the last rocks they threw: “The motion or the cobblestone.”

Labor unions have tried to distance themselves from violence and instead called for a day of national strikes and demonstrations on Thursday. But many protesters seemed eager to up the ante sooner.

“From today to Thursday, it’s a long time,” Mr. Masmejean said, standing at the edge of a throng of protesters, many of whom banged on metal siding to make a resounding noise. “The urgency is now,” he added.

Constant Méheut
March 20, 2023, 10:05 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

Here’s what to expect in Monday’s no-confidence vote in France.

Image
The French government has exposed itself to no-confidence motions that could bring down President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet. Credit...Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By pushing through its plan to overhaul pensions and raise the national retirement age by two years to 64, the French government has exposed itself to no-confidence motions that could bring down President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet — an outcome not seen in half a century of French politics.

While predictions suggest that a no-confidence motion is unlikely to pass, recent statements from legislators who are seen as critical swing voters indicate that the outcome could be closer than expected. Here’s how today’s vote will unfold and what could happen next:

Two no-confidence motions have been filed. Debate is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in France (11 a.m. Eastern) in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, in which Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party does not hold a majority. Each motion requires a simple majority of 287 votes to pass. Voting is expected to take place immediately after the debate, with a result expected around 6 p.m.

The first motion, put forward by the far-right National Rally — the party of former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen — is not expected to receive much support beyond the party’s own ranks. The other, filed by a small group of independent lawmakers and backed by a broad alliance of opposition parties, poses the greater threat to Mr. Macron’s government.

The second motion is expected to be the first to be presented, followed by the motion supported by the National Rally. Representatives of each parliamentary group will then take the floor and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne will conclude the debate. A secret ballot will then be held, in the order in which the motions were presented.

The center-right Republican Party includes key swing voters. Some 260 lawmakers are expected to vote for the second motion, leaving it about 30 votes shy of a majority. Analysts say that many of those could be found from among the Republicans, who have 61 seats in the assembly.

The party, which once pushed a retirement age of 65, has been divided over the pension bill. Although its leadership has called for not supporting the no-confidence motion, several of its representatives said they would do so anyway. The outcome could therefore come down to a dozen or so votes.

“Everything depends on my Republican friends who opposed the bill,” Charles de Courson, the independent lawmaker who filed one of the motions, told France Inter radio Monday morning.

What happens after the vote? If the motion is rejected, the cabinet stays in office and the pension bill, including the increase to the retirement age, becomes law. More protests, however, will likely break out as demonstrators have vowed to keep up their fight if the bill passes.

But if the motion is adopted, Ms. Borne and the cabinet must resign and the bill is defeated. At that point, Mr. Macron could reappoint Ms. Borne or select a new prime minister.

Mr. Macron has left open a threat to dissolve the National Assembly if a no-confidence motion passes, which would lead to new parliamentary elections.

While opposition parties on the left and far right would welcome new elections, the Republicans, already debilitated, have little interest in returning to the ballot box and risking further losses.

Dissolving the National Assembly would also be a risky move for Mr. Macron. His party would probably lose more seats than it gains in new elections, given the current level of anger against the French president.

Only once since France’s Fifth Republic was established in 1958 has a government fallen in a no-confidence vote. That was in 1962, when lawmakers rejected a proposal to elect the president by universal suffrage. President Charles de Gaulle decided as a result to dissolve the National Assembly, and his supporters won an absolute majority in the following elections.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Aurelien Breeden
March 20, 2023, 5:59 a.m. ET

Reporting from Paris

France’s government faces a crucial test on Monday.

Image
Union members opposed to the pension overhaul at a demonstration in Lyon, France, on Wednesday.Credit...Laurent Cipriani/Associated Press

President Emmanuel Macron’s government was facing a crucial no-confidence vote in France’s lower house of Parliament on Monday after his government forced a pension overhaul through without a vote, incensing labor unions, sparking violent protests and setting off the most intense political turmoil since his re-election last year.

In choosing to bypass Parliament, Mr. Macron opened up his government to the no-confidence effort, a move enabled by France’s Constitution, leading to two no-confidence motions in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, against his cabinet.

Votes on both are likely to be held on Monday evening, determining the future of not just the widely unpopular pension overhaul, which would push back the legal age of retirement in France to 64 from 62, but the government itself.

If neither motion passes, the cabinet stays and the bill stands. But if one of the motions gathers enough votes — more than half of the total number of lawmakers elected to the lower house — Mr. Macron’s cabinet will have to resign and the pension bill will be rejected, a huge blow to the president even though he would remain in office.

The first motion, put forward by the far-right National Rally, is not expected to receive much support beyond the party’s own ranks. The other, filed by a small group of independent lawmakers and backed by a broad alliance of opposition parties, poses a greater threat.

While neither motion is seen as likely to get the required number of votes — at least 287 — to succeed, anger against Mr. Macron has intensified, and speculation over a possible surprise outcome is rampant after three days of volatility and heightened tension in French politics.

Image
The police surrounded protesters in central Paris on Sunday.Credit...Lewis Joly/Associated Press

Mr. Macron sees the pension overhaul as crucial to France’s future. He has argued that long-term deficits will hobble the country if nothing is done to address a discrepancy between the number of active workers who pay into the pension system and the number of retirees whose government pensions come out of it.

But opponents dispute the need for urgency. Even the official body that monitors France’s pension system has acknowledged that there is no immediate threat of bankruptcy and that long-term deficits are hard to predict. Labor unions have accused Mr. Macron of rushing through the age increase without considering other ways of balancing the system.

The decision to push the bill through the National Assembly without a vote on Thursday set off angry, often spontaneous protests across the country, some turning into fierce confrontations between riot police and unruly or violent protesters.

In Paris, demonstrators lit smoke bombs in the middle of a large shopping mall. In the southeastern city of Lyon, they tried to break into a town hall. In Nantes, to the west, they blocked a highway.

Constituency offices of lawmakers favorable to the pension bill were also scrawled with graffiti and pelted with rocks. Transportation, teacher and garbage collector strikes are still continuing in some areas.

“If the motion is not passed, people will continue to fight to reverse the reform,” said Raphaël Masmejean, 31, on Friday night in central Paris at the Place de la Concorde, where protesters had lit a large fire in view of the National Assembly building.

The objective of the protests, many there said, was to increase pressure on lawmakers to punish the government on Monday.

That pressure is especially high on representatives of the mainstream conservative Republican party. About half of the Republican lawmakers in the National Assembly — roughly 30 or so — would be needed to pass the no-confidence motion that was filed by independent lawmakers.

“All is in the hands of these 30-or-so Republicans who are hostile to the reform,” Charles de Courson, a high-profile independent lawmaker, told France Inter radio on Monday.

On Saturday night, protesters threw stones at the office of the Republican party president in Nice, on the French Riviera, and left a message scrawled on a wall: “The motion or the cobblestone.”

Image
Voting for the pension bill on Thursday in the Senate. The measure was approved in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, but uncertainty over whether it would pass in the National Assembly prompted President Emmanuel Macron to sidestep a vote there.Credit...Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Republican lawmakers are split. The party’s leadership, which backed the pension bill in exchange for some concessions, has said repeatedly that it did not want to topple the government, and most of the party’s lawmakers are expected to follow that line.

But Aurélien Pradié, a Republican lawmaker from the rural Lot area of southwestern France who opposes the pension bill and has become a leader of sorts for party rebels, announced on Monday morning that he would vote in favor of the no-confidence motion.

“This law is poisoned, because it is full of democratic failings,” Mr. Pradié told Europe 1 radio.

He estimated that about 15 Republican lawmakers might vote like him — still short of the number required for a no-confidence motion to succeed. But, he added, if the vote had become so close, “it is because there is a deep democratic rupture in our country.”

Multiple no-confidence motions against Mr. Macron’s government failed late last year after it pushed through several budget bills, and his allies have insisted that the opposition is in no position to govern. Bruno Le Maire, the economy minister, described the opposition as a “clownish carriage” of far-left, far-right and independent lawmakers in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien.

In a sign of the growing pressure on him, Mr. Macron was forced to appeal for calm on Sunday, and he also added that “after months of political and social consultations and more than 170 hours of debate,” he wanted the pension bill to “run its democratic course, in a manner respectful to all.”

Image
Police officers ran toward protesters during a protest on Saturday in Paris.Credit...Lewis Joly/Associated Press

One study by the Elabe polling institute published on Monday by the BFMTV news channel found that 68 percent of those surveyed felt “angry” about the decision to push the bill through without a vote, and that the same percentage wanted a no-confidence motion against the government to succeed.

In an interview on Sunday with the newspaper Libération, Laurent Berger, the head of the country’s largest union, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, said that Mr. Macron’s reform was “a disaster,” and he urged him not to enact the pension changes even if they became law.

“We have gone from a feeling of scorn to a feeling of anger” because of the decision to push the bill through without a vote, Mr. Berger said, even as he condemned the violent outbursts that marred protests in Paris and other cities last week. Labor unions have called for a ninth official protest on Thursday, but have been mostly absent from the weekend melees.

The Paris police eventually banned protests last week on the Place de la Concorde and the nearby Champs-Élysées avenue, citing “risks of disturbances to public order” after two days of violent nighttime clashes between riot police and protesters who lit trash fires and threw cobblestones. Dozens of protesters were arrested throughout the country over the weekend, amid a forceful police presence.

At the Place de la Concorde on Friday, Hélène Aldeguer, 29, called the decision to push the bill through without a vote “unbelievable and not surprising at the same time.”

“It personifies Macron’s use of power and position,” said Ms. Aldeguer, a comic book artist. “He is isolated.”

Catherine Porter and Constant Méheut contributed reporting.

Aurelien Breeden
March 16, 2023, 10:43 a.m. ET

What is Article 49.3 of the French Constitution?

Article 49.3 of the French Constitution enables a government to push a bill through the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, without a vote.

The move is perfectly legal, and it has been enshrined in the Constitution since its inception in 1958 — part of several institutional tools that Charles de Gaulle, then France’s leader, insisted upon in order to rein in the parliamentary instability of France’s Fourth Republic and give the executive stronger control.

But over the past decade, Article 49.3 has increasingly been seen as an undemocratic tool, used by the government to strong-arm lawmakers.

If the government activates Article 49.3, the bill is pushed through without a vote. But there is a cost: Opposition lawmakers then have 24 hours to file a no-confidence motion against the government. At least one-tenth of lawmakers in the lower house have to support the motion for it to go to the floor. Lawmakers vote on that motion in the days that follow.

To succeed, a no-confidence motion must get an absolute majority of votes — more than half of the total number of lawmakers elected to the lower house.

A successful no-confidence motion topples the government — meaning the prime minister and the cabinet, but not the president — and the bill is rejected. If the no-confidence motion fails, the bill stands.

It is exceedingly rare for no-confidence motions to succeed in France, and those that the opponents of the pension bill will file within the next 24 hours are not expected to be any different.

While President Emmanuel Macron’s left-wing and far-right opponents will gladly sign on to a no-confidence motion, many mainstream conservative lawmakers — even those who opposed the pension bill — are reluctant to topple the government.

Mr. Macron has also leaked the threat of dissolving the National Assembly and calling new elections if his government was toppled, and some lawmakers who won tight races do not want to go back to the ballot box. Still, Mr. Macron’s opponents are particularly furious over the pension bill, and they could get more support for a no-confidence motion than they could have before.

Mr. Macron’s government successfully used Article 49.3 multiple times in the fall to pass budget bills. But labor union leaders and other opponents have warned that using it on the pension bill — a far more controversial and consequential piece of legislation — would further inflame tensions and anger protesters who have marched and gone on strike around France over the past two months.

The article, after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne used it on Thursday, has now been used 100 times since 1958. Michel Rocard, a Socialist prime minister under President François Mitterrand, used it 28 times, the most to date.

The government can use Article 49.3 once only per legislative session on a regular bill, but as many times as it likes on a budget bill — which is how the government decided to file the pension overhauls.

A correction was made on 
March 16, 2023

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of times Article 49.3 of the French Constitution has been used since 1958. It is 100, not 88.

How we handle corrections

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT