By Athena Papakosta

The French President Emmanuel Macron, has always been in favor of reforming France’s pension system. A year ago, shortly before the country’s elections, Emmanuel Macron pledged to face the issue of pensions underlining that the French “must work harder”.

In June 2022, however, the Macron party failed to gather the required majority in the French National Assembly. Most seats only. From then until today, the French president’s assistant for his government to pass bills is the Republican party led by Eric Chioti.

At the moment the French National Assembly looks like a minefield for him.

Today the Macron government will be faced with not one, but two motions of impeachment. The former belongs to the centrist independent parliamentary group LIOT, which is also supported by the left-wing coalition NUPES. The second belongs to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Alarm with its MPs and the head of the party herself clarifying that they will vote in favor of all the motions of censure that have been submitted.

However, it is unlikely that the opposition will achieve its goal… to topple the Macron government. After all, no one has succeeded since 1962. And that’s because the Republicans have ruled out from the first moment to support any motion of impeachment. Of course, no one can rule out any leaks.

Yesterday Sunday the political office of Eric Chioti was vandalized and he posted a photo of the damage on his Twitter account. The facade of the office has been destroyed by a group of strangers. The attack was also accompanied by the message: either the stone or the motion of censure with the Republican leader underlining that he will not give in to terrorism.

France is like a boiling cauldron. Paris and other great cities of France surrender to the flames of popular fury. Already across the country – before Macron’s decision to pass his incendiary pension reform by presidential decree rather than a parliamentary vote – repeated strikes and mostly peaceful protests and marches had paralyzed French society. But now the situation has gotten out of control despite the ban on demonstrations in the central square of La Concorde.

The French president has been accused many times in the past of arrogance and of living outside of French reality. For many French citizens he is the president of the rich and by exercising the right to take advantage of the special constitutional procedure by activating Article 49(3) he has made more enemies than friends. Quite indicative is the slogan that has flooded the streets “Macron, we can start again. We beheaded Louis XVI!”.

The winner, according to analysts, is Marine Le Pen, who has been lurking for a long time. At the same time, the French unions have also won many points.

If the motions of censure pass then we will be talking about a big blow against Emmanuel Macron. First, his pension reform is thrown in the wastebasket. Second, his government should resign. Third, the French president will have to form a new government but it will be a weakened one.

If they do not pass, then again the French president will go into a reshuffle with the future of his prime minister, Elizabeth Bourne, looking uncertain as he wants to appease his critics.

Of course, the same is not true in the case of his pension reform. His next step then will be unemployment and how he will drop it from the current 7.2% to 5%. At the same time, another option will be the dissolution of the Parliament and the announcement of early elections in the country. A scenario quite unlikely since his popularity rates are at their nadir.