BY A WAFER-THIN margin of just nine votes, the French government has survived a no-confidence vote. The result on March 20th in the National Assembly was far narrower than many had expected, and reflects a level of political discontent that is unlikely to dissipate. The immediate political crisis for President Emmanuel Macron may be over, but popular unrest could yet spread.

Opposition parties needed 287 votes to dislodge Mr Macron’s minority centrist government. This would have annulled his controversial reform raising France’s minimum pension age from 62 years to 64. But a motion of no-confidence proposed by a cross-party alliance got just 278 votes. A second effort to topple the government, tabled by Marine Le Pen’s nationalist-populist National Rally, failed by a far wider margin.

This ought to mean that Elisabeth Borne, the prime minister, and her team can turn the page. The pension reform now enters the statute books. Mr Macron judged last week that he would not get the votes to pass the reform in the lower house, so he used a constitutional provision known as article 49.3 to push it through without voting. It was clear that this could lead to a no-confidence motion, but Mr Macron won the bet.

Politically, however, this decision will leave a bitter aftertaste. The pension reform itself is unpopular. During six weeks of parliamentary debate, protest marches and strikes (by railway workers, rubbish collectors and others), two-thirds of the French have remained stubbornly against raising the retirement age. No argument deployed by the government—the threat of future funding deficits, the need to preserve the system even as people live ever longer—has dented this hostility.

The president’s decision to resort to article 49.3 has enraged people further. Fully 78% told a poll that they were against the use of this tool. The opposition sees it as an anti-democratic abuse of power. When Ms Borne announced the decision last week, protestors gathered in Paris and other cities; some demonstrations turned violent. Ahead of the vote Charles de Courson, who tabled the cross-party motion of no-confidence, called the use of article 49.3 a “denial of democracy”.

Although deeply unpopular, Mr Macron’s pension reform is right for France. The country spends 14% of GDP on public pensions, nearly double the OECD average. In 2004 there were 13m pensioners in France. Thanks to longer life expectancy and retiring Baby Boomers, by 2020 this figure had risen to 17m. Re-elected in April 2022, Mr Macron could have left a brewing problem to a successor; instead he decided that it was worth spending precious political capital to solve it.

Moreover, his use of article 49.3 is hardly unique. Designed to strengthen the hand of government, the article was written into the Fifth Republic constitution by Charles de Gaulle as a response to the instability of the Fourth. De Gaulle himself used it in 1960 to launch France’s nuclear-deterrence programme. Since then it has been used 100 times, by governments on the left and the right, Ms Borne’s included.

Mr Macron’s proposal to raise the retirement age was part of his electoral manifesto, and he and his government tried to forge a consensus. Ms Borne spent months consulting with unions and opposition leaders and redrafting the legislation with new concessions, especially to the centre-right Republicans. Parliament devoted 175 hours to debating the issue, in part to dealing with some 13,000 amendments tabled by NUPES, a left-wing alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in a bid to hold up any debate. When the legislation went to the Senate, which is controlled by the Republicans, it was approved—even though 19 Republicans in the lower house then voted against the government.

The outcome, however, is likely to feel like an empty victory for Mr Macron. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the reform was not approved through normal parliamentary procedure. The episode will exacerbate his reputation for having an imperious governing style. As it is, his popularity rating has fallen to just 28% from a high of 41% after his re-election, according to Ifop, a pollster. This is its lowest point since early 2019, during the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) rebellion. A comparable popular rebellion, on top of ongoing political disorder, cannot be ruled out. ■