It is not much fun being the prime minister of France these days. It is a job encompassing humiliation, ridicule and grovelling. Sébastien Lecornu resigned last Monday after 27 days in the post but by the end of the week he had been reappointed.
His second premiership could be even shorter than his first if he loses a vote on no confidence in parliament on Thursday. The motion has been called by Marine Le Pen’s Right-wing National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s hard-left La France Insoumise.
To survive the vote Lecornu needs the support of the centre-Left Socialist party and their 66 MPs. The price of the vote was a promise to suspend the pension reform bill. Lecornu agreed.
In his policy address to the National Assembly on Tuesday the prime minister announced that the pension reform bill will be suspended until the presidential election in April 2027.
The news was greeted with jubilation by the Socialists. “We see this situation as a victory as much as a first step that allows us to envisage the next ones,” proclaimed their parliamentary leader Boris Vallaud.
It is not just the Socialists who are cock-a-hoop. So are two-thirds of the French, who objected to the reform from the moment it was tabled in 2023 because it raised the age of retirement from 62 to 64.
Most European countries have increased the retirement age in recent years to between 65 and 67, a recognition of demographic changes with the population ageing and the workforce shrinking.
France is going in the other direction to the horror of business leaders. Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, the country’s largest employer federation, warned recently that returning the retirement age to 62 would send “a terrible message to the financial markets, signalling that France is unreformable”.
The Ministry of the Economy estimated earlier this month that the cost of suspending the pension reform bill would be €400m in 2026 and €1.8bn in 2027. The cost to France’s credibility is incalculable.
The business-friendly Le Figaro newspaper wrote a despairing editorial on Tuesday in which it lamented the fact that “France continues to believe in the old ideas that are leading it to ruin. Inoculated nearly 50 years ago, the socialist poison continues to wreak havoc.”
France’s state debt stands at €3.5tn and two-thirds of this sum comes from social benefits. The debt began to soar in the 1980s, the decade in which François Mitterrand came to power, the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic.
In 1982, one year after his election victory, Mitterrand reduced the age of retirement from 65 to 60. He also appointed a minister of free time. The French were living the Socialist Dream.
At the start of 2000 Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin introduced the 35-hour week. Within four years the government admitted it was a “disaster”. The then finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said it had saddled the State with €11.4bn a year in additional social charges, explaining: “The Socialists made a decision which is not compatible with our responsibilities.”
The centre-Right Sarkozy was elected president in 2007 and the following year his government passed a new law that enabled companies to negotiate longer hours for employees. In 2010 Sarkozy raised the retirement age from 60 to 62.
And there it now remains for at least another two years.
One Conservative MP, Eric Ciotti, the leader of the Union of the Right for the Republic, accused Sébastien Lecornu of having “given everything away to the Socialist Party”.
It is a further humiliation for Emmanuel Macron. When the pension reform bill was passed in April 2023, the president explained to the nation in a television address that the “changes were needed”, and he promised: “Gradually working more is also producing more wealth for our whole country.”
With the bill suspended, the only thing France will be producing is more debt.
Donald Trump couldn’t resist a dig at Macron during Monday’s Gaza peace summit in Egypt, remarking that he was taking a “low-key approach” for a change. The other world leaders laughed.
That’s what France has become: an international joke.
It is not much fun being the prime minister of France these days. It is a job encompassing humiliation, ridicule and grovelling. Sébastien Lecornu resigned last Monday after 27 days in the post but by the end of the week he had been reappointed.
His second premiership could be even shorter than his first if he loses a vote on no confidence in parliament on Thursday. The motion has been called by Marine Le Pen’s Right-wing National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s hard-left La France Insoumise.
To survive the vote Lecornu needs the support of the centre-Left Socialist party and their 66 MPs. The price of the vote was a promise to suspend the pension reform bill. Lecornu agreed.
In his policy address to the National Assembly on Tuesday the prime minister announced that the pension reform bill will be suspended until the presidential election in April 2027.
The news was greeted with jubilation by the Socialists. “We see this situation as a victory as much as a first step that allows us to envisage the next ones,” proclaimed their parliamentary leader Boris Vallaud.
It is not just the Socialists who are cock-a-hoop. So are two-thirds of the French, who objected to the reform from the moment it was tabled in 2023 because it raised the age of retirement from 62 to 64.
Most European countries have increased the retirement age in recent years to between 65 and 67, a recognition of demographic changes with the population ageing and the workforce shrinking.
France is going in the other direction to the horror of business leaders. Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, the country’s largest employer federation, warned recently that returning the retirement age to 62 would send “a terrible message to the financial markets, signalling that France is unreformable”.
The Ministry of the Economy estimated earlier this month that the cost of suspending the pension reform bill would be €400m in 2026 and €1.8bn in 2027. The cost to France’s credibility is incalculable.
The business-friendly Le Figaro newspaper wrote a despairing editorial on Tuesday in which it lamented the fact that “France continues to believe in the old ideas that are leading it to ruin. Inoculated nearly 50 years ago, the socialist poison continues to wreak havoc.”
France’s state debt stands at €3.5tn and two-thirds of this sum comes from social benefits. The debt began to soar in the 1980s, the decade in which François Mitterrand came to power, the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic.
In 1982, one year after his election victory, Mitterrand reduced the age of retirement from 65 to 60. He also appointed a minister of free time. The French were living the Socialist Dream.
At the start of 2000 Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin introduced the 35-hour week. Within four years the government admitted it was a “disaster”. The then finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said it had saddled the State with €11.4bn a year in additional social charges, explaining: “The Socialists made a decision which is not compatible with our responsibilities.”
The centre-Right Sarkozy was elected president in 2007 and the following year his government passed a new law that enabled companies to negotiate longer hours for employees. In 2010 Sarkozy raised the retirement age from 60 to 62.
And there it now remains for at least another two years.
One Conservative MP, Eric Ciotti, the leader of the Union of the Right for the Republic, accused Sébastien Lecornu of having “given everything away to the Socialist Party”.
It is a further humiliation for Emmanuel Macron. When the pension reform bill was passed in April 2023, the president explained to the nation in a television address that the “changes were needed”, and he promised: “Gradually working more is also producing more wealth for our whole country.”
With the bill suspended, the only thing France will be producing is more debt.
Donald Trump couldn’t resist a dig at Macron during Monday’s Gaza peace summit in Egypt, remarking that he was taking a “low-key approach” for a change. The other world leaders laughed.
That’s what France has become: an international joke.