After a hectic first term, the French President Emmanuel Macron, he won re-election with 58.54% of the vote against 41.46% of far-right Marine Le Pen. The centrist leader’s first five years in the Elysee were marked by strong street protests and a series of world crises (from Covid-19 to the war in Ukraine and the inflation of energy prices). After becoming the first French head of state to be re-elected since Jacques Chirac in 2002, does he now face a more relaxed five-year term?
“The next few years You will not be calm & rdquor;, Macron himself admitted in his sober speech as he celebrated his victory in front of fewer than 3,000 supporters around the Eiffel Tower. It doesn’t appear that his second term will be a Sunday stroll down the Champ de Mars. With less than 24 hours of grace, French politics has turned to the general elections on June 12th and 19th.
Since the introduction of a five-year term for the head of state in 2002, these general elections have become a mere formality for the winner of the presidential election. But from among the ranks of the Macronists, they observe with a degree fear an eventual Left unity coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who aspires to become the new prime minister and impose cohabitation on the president. “Unless participation levels go down and the left unites, things can get very complicated for us,” an MP from La República en Marcha (Macron’s party) admitted to the liberal daily L’Opinion.
If the president finally achieves a majority in the National Assembly – initial polls suggest so – then he can push his program through. Throughout the campaign he was quite ambiguous about what his first actions would be and it’s not easy to outline what those first 100 days will entail. But there are a number of dossiers that promise to be sensitive. These are the three “hot potatoes” & rdquor; the beginning of the second act of the Macron presidency.
war in Ukraine
The centrist leader will begin his second term amid one of the worst armed conflicts in Europe since World War II. After he staged his unsuccessful attempt at mediation between the Ukrainians in March Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the russian Wladimir Putin, in April he devoted himself to the election campaign in his country. A few hours after the announcement of his victory, he had a telephone conversation with Zelenskyy. Now there is speculation about a possible business trip to Kyiv. not how Pedro Sanchez or by the British Boris Johnson, He has not traveled to the Ukrainian capital since the beginning of the war.
Also, Macron, whose country occupies that rotating presidency of the European Union, will chair a European summit in Brussels at the end of May dedicated to war, building the “Europe of Defense” & rdquo; and the energy sovereignty of the Community countries. In March, given the economic impact of the conflict and the energy price crisis, he proposed: a New European investment plan, modeled on the Next Generation EU. This proposal has the support of governments in the south of the continent, such as Spain, but arouses more reluctance from those in the north, such as Germany.
To compensate for inflation and the economic consequences of the war, his new government will also have to deal with the end of some emergency devices announced in the middle of the election campaign, such as: Gasoline price cut by 18 cents. Once this subsidy is completed on July 31, more specific measures will be promoted, such as subsidies for the most humble drivers or a 4% increase in pensions (equivalent to inflation) in the summer.
pension reform
It was the Macronist campaign promise that drew even more streams of ink. The President wants to extend it minimum retirement age from 62 to 65 years (with 43 years of contributions). In order to convince left-wing voters to support him in the duel against Le Pen, he proposed in the last election campaign to apply this measure gradually and not to reach the retirement age until 2031 at 65 years.
In late summer or early fall, the executive is due to meet with unions and employers to discuss this controversial reform. “If Emmanuel Macron (…) wants to push this through 65 yearswill face opposition, including from the CFDT,” warned Laurent Berger, general secretary of the (moderate) union with most affiliates in France, in an interview in Le Monde.
In the last five years, social dialogue has been more of a cosmetic nature. In practice, no reform was passed after a consensus between employers and unions. For this second term, Macron promised a different way of governing, closer to citizenship and consensual. But he gave no details on what it will consist of. “This new era will not be the continuity of the five-year period that is coming to an end, but a collective invention of a new and better method for the next five years,” he promised on Sunday.
The dissatisfaction of the education sector
Similar news
That teacher They went on strike and demonstrated massively in January. Their mobilizations were motivated by the management of Covid-19, but also by their low salaries. In fact, France is a particularly badly paid profession, with lower salaries than in Germany, Spain or Italy.
The unveiling of Macron’s program on March 17 was a pitcher of cold water for those education unions expecting a pay rise for the profession as a whole. So he hinted that those increases would only come if they took on new responsibilities. But in the final stretch of the campaign, he changed his version and 10% salary increase promised for all teachers, although it was later stated in the press that this improvement would only affect beginners. If this situation is not resolved, the President could face new protests from the sector.