John Keiger John Keiger

Macron will win and lose in his battle to change France

Winston Churchill’s comment about France has lost none of its piquancy. Churchill famously said of the difference between Britain, France and Germany:

‘In England, everything is permitted except what is forbidden. In Germany, everything is forbidden except what is permitted. In France, everything is allowed, even what is prohibited.’

France’s debilitating national transport strike, now in its 47th day, proves it. Ever since the Enlightenment, France has led the world in developing universal principles to govern citizens’ lives in the name of equality. This differs from the approach across the Channel, where piecemeal legislation of customary English common law means everything is permitted except what is forbidden, in the name of liberty.

After the French Revolution, uniformity of legislation was considered a guarantee of unity and equality for all, whether it be weights and measures or the Napoleonic legal civil code, the bible of French justice. France’s five republics deemed their values to be universal for all mankind, not just French citizens. The principle of universality was extended to French colonies (supposed beneficiaries of the Republic’s ‘civilising mission’) and eventually to that more recent off-shoot of French influence, method and legalism, the European Union.

Today’s strike hangs on the reform of France’s labyrinthine state pension system with its 42 special schemes, legal retirement age, which range from 55 to 62, and varying contributory rates. Emmanuel Macron still presents the state pension, which in some cases dates from Louis IV (for the Paris Opera), like some feudal remnant. In his view it is not egalitarian but unjust and outdated. Another thing which he does not dwell on is also true: it is increasingly unaffordable.

Macron is trying to drive through changes which involve the replacement of this system with a universal points-based one. But those striking are determined not to budge.

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John Keiger
Written by
John Keiger

Professor John Keiger is the former research director of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge.

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