2024-05-10 06:06:54
Behind its obstinacy in pushing through its very controversial pension reform, without a real dialogue with the social partners or within parliament, by ignoring the demands of union representatives and elected officials and by remaining indifferent to the clamors of the street, the observers see a president “who does not want to give up”, and who seeks “to impose rather than dialogue”, whatever the cost, to use his favorite phrase during his various speeches during the Covid-19 pandemic.
By wanting to impose its reform raising the retirement age to 64 years and by turning a deaf ear to the demands of the unions, the opposition and a large majority of French people, fiercely opposed to this text and who came down massively in the street, particularly this Tuesday which marks the 14th day of strike and demonstration against this reform since last January, Emmanuel Macron has plunged the country into several months of uncertainty, which has caused France to downgrade its position by a notch. rating by the Fitch agency and criticism that came from all sides.
With his “immoderate taste for conflict”, according to certain political commentators, the head of state is now perceived by his fellow citizens as a “cold autocrat locked in his certainties and with an impetuous, even uncontrollable, temperament”.
This is what a survey by the Viavoice institute for the newspaper Libération revealed last April. According to this opinion survey, 61% of those questioned believe that Emmanuel Macron is today “more authoritarian” than during his first mandate.
His practice of power is perceived as solitary by 53% of those surveyed and disrespectful of political opposition for 69% of them, while 55% of voters questioned think that freedoms have regressed since he took office.
This development takes place in a very tense political context where signs of stiffening and radicalization are multiplying with a decline in public freedoms, attacks in particular against the Human Rights League or even the tension in the socio-economic climate in a country strongly affected by galloping inflation which continues to erode the purchasing power of large sections of society and a public debt which is reaching records.
According to observers, Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term, which he began deprived of his absolute majority in the National Assembly, is clearly marked by “disorder and an absolutist and authoritarian drift of power, to the detriment of values democratic and social aspects of the Fifth Republic”.
Evidenced in this sense, in particular, is the denial of institutions, at their head the National Assembly, where the executive had to draw out the famous article 49.3 of the Constitution more than ten times to pass, without the vote representatives of the people, decisive texts for the political life of the country, led by the much criticized pension reform.
A situation which has not escaped the notice of politicians, intellectuals, defenders of rights and freedoms and the media, both in France and elsewhere, led by the Human Rights League (LDH) which denounced, at the beginning of May, an “authoritarian turn” and a “contempt” for parliamentary and social democracy in France, which now extends to fundamental rights.
The defense of freedoms has become the “hottest subject of the period” in France, while the freedom to demonstrate is called into question by the toughening of the instructions given to the police and gendarmerie forces, including with regard to non-violent citizens, which results in serious injuries, mutilations and toxic instrumentalization of the police forces, wrote Patrick Baudouin, president of the LDH and its presidents and honorary president, in a collective article published in the daily Le Monde.
A few days earlier, the Human Rights Council had called France to order regarding the human rights situation in the country, pointing in particular to attacks against migrants, racial profiling, police violence and excessive use of force by authorities during demonstrations.
The signatories of the platform also denounced the forced passage of a power deprived of a parliamentary majority, disavowed by a large majority of citizens, and contested by all the trade union organizations of this country, which has just, according to them, put highlight an unprecedented blockage of the president’s political agenda and a deep democratic crisis, affecting both the real functioning of the institutions of the Republic, social dialogue, the confidence of citizens in those who have the duty to protect them. represent and respect them.
A bleak observation which has not escaped the attention of the recognized anthropologist and historian, Emmanuel Todd, for whom “the entire presidency of Emmanuel Macron is associated with disorder”.
“I sometimes think that Macron survives through disorder,” the historian emphasized in an interview with a French television channel.
2024-05-10 06:06:54