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This week:

• ✊Pension reform triggers protests

• 🗳️Partial legislative elections kick-off

• 🌹Olivier Faure fights for his position as First Secretary

✊Pension reform triggers protests

Good news everyone: The government has finally announced its pension reforms and we now know what is coming on the horizon!

While a breakdown is on the horizon, some of the bigger points are the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years and ensuring that the minimum pension payment per month is €1,200 for all retirees.

Bad news everyone: the Unions had basically pre-planned mass protests before knowing what the reforms would entail, hell-bent on forcing the government to maintain a retirement age of 62 years.

Frédéric Souillot, the leader of Force Ouvrière, had already promised the government “the mother of all battles”, and it’s shaping up to be a rough protest season across France, with not only the union’s decision to fight this reform with action in the streets but with even the Gilets Jaunes deciding that they want to turn up and get involved with the fun.

With the call to protest on January 19 being signed by every Union in France, this has equalled a feat that was only achieved by the previous pension reform carried out by the François Fillon government in 2010 and could be a sign of the government facing a problem.

But even then, there appears to be a downward trend in protest numbers. The 2010 protests allegedly attracted 1,000,000 manifestants, while the 2019-2020 protests attracted an estimated 800,000.

While there’s no strict connection between the two figures, and while polls have shown that up to 4,000,000 people may be “ready to demonstrate”, these will be a worrying consideration for any protest organisers.

Dominique Andolfatto, professor of political science at the University of Burgundy, says that organisers will need to bring together 1,000,000 protestors to make an impact on the government’s plan.

Regardless, with CGT Petroleum pushing for several days of strikes from January 19 to 26, and arguing that it may be necessary to “shut down refining facilities”, there may be an even more conflictual situation on the horizon.

🗳️Partial legislative elections kick-off

Back on December 2 2022, the Citutional Council cancelled the results of three elections that had led to the victories of Thomas Mesnier (Horizons, Charente), Anne-Sophie Frigout (Rassemblement National, Marne) and Bertrand Petit (Parti Socialiste, Pas-de-Calais).

The result of this is that all three candidates are forced to run for election once again, with the first round set for January 22 and the second round set for January 29, giving only a handful of weeks to explain the situation to their candidates, as well as to re-fight tough elections.

Thomas Mesnier was clear about the difficulties ahead of him in his fight to defeat the NUPES candidate René Pilato.

“We must explain why a new election is being held, reaffirm the importance of the vote, and then try to convince those who move to choose me…Abstention is what is most complicated in this election: people on the right are mobilizing the most”

However, Mélenchon’s candidate Pilato is feeling more positive. Having received Manuel Bompard and Clémence Guetté, and with only 24 votes having separated him and Mesnier, everything is at play. “If the level of participation is high enough, it can be favourable to us,” he said positively.

With an increasingly febrile political atmosphere, the fight around pension reform, out-of-control inflation and the potential continuation of the energy crisis, the fight will not be easy for any of the ‘incumbents’, and they will all have to fight tough battles.

🌹Olivier Faure fights for his position

The Election for First Secretary of the Parti Socialiste (PS) has seen its first round conclude with a satisfactory result for the incumbent.

With the three-way competition for the hotly contested position, Olivier Faure claimed that he had won 50% of the votes this Thursday 12 January. Handily beating Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol (30.5%) and Hélène Geoffroy (19%) in the 14,000 ballots, he looks the most likely to win in the second-round run-off.

However, as is becoming habitual in politics today, this result was contested by Mayer-Rossignol, who claimed that the results were actually 48.2% for Faure, 31.4% for himself, and 20.5 for Geoffroy.

Likely an attempt at reinforcing his position and making victory seem more attainable, there’s a key strategy at play here by Rossignol, who will be attempting to frame this as a battle between the pro-NUPES / LFI supporters, and those who want a return to the classic PS.

Faure is very clearly playing the same game, with a statement following the vote that attempted to frame it as a support for the pro-coalition decision:

“Thank you to the thousands of socialist activists who have chosen to place me very largely in the lead. The strategic debate has been settled. The activists have clearly chosen the union of the left and environmentalists. On January 19, I will be the candidate of the Socialist Rally to win the left!”

- Olivier Faure on Twitter

However, the readings of this result are clearly far more contested than the incumbent argues. With 1 in 2 militants clearly not supporting his candidate, there’s very clearly a risk of a schism between the two wings: one which supports the far-left ideology espoused by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise, and those who support more modern socialism espoused by Rossignol, Geoffroy, and by extension, François Hollande and his coalition.

Regardless, everything is at play here. Official results show that Faure had won 49.15% to Mayer-Rossignol’s 30.15% and Geoffroy’s 20.34%, meaning that there is every chance of an alliance that would edge out the incumbent.

Should Faure win, this would likely enforce the schism, with the far-left enshrining control over the party and likely pushing the classical centre line out of power in the short-to-mid-term. The PS will likely fall further under the control and influence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, remaining a junior partner to the LFI or, in a worst-case scenario, being consumed by it.

If Mayer-Rossignol can somehow pull off a victory on 19 January, then while a schism continues to be likely, the centre line of the party may be able to claw back control and rebuild the power of the party, in the hopes of moving back in the direction of being the influential political power that it once was, unifying the progressive tendencies of the left without relying on populist demagoguery.

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