Strikes in France are drawing to a close. But there’s no real winner
Nothing is apparently off the table. Early in his presidency, Macron succeeded in making it easier for small French businesses to hire and fire employees. And late last year, he set his sights on what is known in France as the “mother of all reforms”— an overhaul of the country’s famously generous retirement system, a prize that’s eluded many of his predecessors.
After Macron introduced his reform project — streamlining a dizzying system of 42 separate retirement schemes into a single points-based system — there were two months of crippling strikes, a classic French form of public theater.
At the behest of France’s trade unions, national and local train lines came screeching to a halt, and even some flights were canceled as workers took to the streets to protest changes to their pensions and the national retirement age.
Macron charged ahead regardless, offering a few concessions but not any major ones, and the strikes are mostly over now.
But as things gradually return to normal, the 42-year-old president cannot quite be seen as the victor, and neither can the unions be said to have failed. In an environment of heavy malaise, the clash between an increasingly isolated Élysée Palace and the streets continues, only in different forms.
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