📈 The Weekly Dispatch - Stately Transformations
📈 The Weekly Dispatch - Stately Transformations
22 January 2023 - The Transformation of the French Armies, the Pension Reform Protests, A new Franco-Spanish Friendship Treaty, and some major promotions chez Les Républicains.
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This week
🪖The Transformation of the French Armies
This week saw a huge announcement coming out of France, with President Emmanuel Macron announcing a massive €413 billion investment into the French military, with the goal being to maintain France’s position as a major geopolitical power on the global stage.
Want to read about the specifics? Check out this dispatch below:
👵The Pension Reform Protests
This has been a hell of a week for the French government, with the Pension reform protests across France seeing a huge mobilisation against the current plans nine days after the reform project was presented by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
A total of 1.12 million people joined the protest on Thursday 19 January, with 80,000 people in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Playing the age-old game of protest number inflation, the Confédération générale du travail (CGT, General Confederation of Labour) announced “more than two million” protestors across the country, and 400,000 in the capital.
While all trade union leaders had rallied behind the protests, particularly the CGT and the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT, or French Democratic Confederation of Labour), it’s still difficult to imagine such an explosion in the numbers of protestors, which resemble more of a political ploy than anything.
Speaking from Barcelona, Emmanuel Macron made it clear that the government would continue the process of reform, with “respect and a spirit of dialogue, but determination and a spirit of responsibility”.
So no U-turns, then.
One important thing to note about these protests is that only one measure is being targeted: the increase in the legal retirement age from 62, the lowest in Europe, to 64 years of age, still amongst the lowest.
A certain ‘brutality’ is being evoked for certain workers, particularly farmers, who explain how difficult it would be for many in their sector to work even an extra year, let alone two. This is something that I’ve also personally heard from those within the building sector.
By contrast, the increase in the minimum pension amount, to €1,200, has not raised any ire, even if this would be complicated or impossible without the longer working period.
This has become an almost generational conflict, harkening back to the protests of 1995 where Alain Juppé was forced to back down on his Social Security Reform Project.
Alongside this major protest, we saw a youth protest on 21 January, primarily led by the members of the NUPES coalition, which received the support of several major La France Insoumise deputies.
A new date of protest has been set for Tuesday 31 January, the day after the first examination of the bill at the Assemblée National, which will show us whether the protests are durable, and should therefore be feared, or whether it is a short-term concern for Borne and the government.
If you want to read more about the pension reforms, you should subscribe and comment below to let me know exactly what you want to hear and/or read about!
🇪🇸The Franco-Spanish Friendship Treaty
On the good news front, the Franco-Spanish relationship reached new heights this week, with French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez signing the historic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Barcelona this Thursday.
With Spain previously only having such a treaty with Portugal, and France having similar with only Germany and Italy, it was a huge step in internal European politics and showed the value placed on this alliance.
Sanchez understood this clearly, pointing out that the “treaty isn’t just reinforcing both countries, but our common project of Europe,” while reminding present journalists that the two countries together made up 25% of the EU’s population, 30% of the EU economy, and were the two most visited nations in the world.
Macron, from his side, highlighted that the treaty showed the “shared visions” and “same idea of Europe – a Europe confident in its democratic values, rules-based system, a Europe that is sovereign and more armed to fight against threats.”
One of the big ideas on the horizon, on top of the recent submarine pipeline to carry green hydrogen from Barcelona to Marseille, are efforts to reinforce European industry to counter US industrial policy.
“We have to accelerate green tech, have a made-in-Europe strategy and simplify and finance strategic corporate investments,” Macron stated, while Sanchez was clear that the two countries would fight to reform the EU electricity market at the European level.
In a rather sweet way, the French president said that the lack of a friendship treaty of this scale “was an anomaly that has been repaired,” and your favourite publication is very glad that it has been.
📢Les Républicains Make Major Promotions
Let’s cap this dispatch off with a nice HR story, with Eric Ciotti appointing his two new vice-presidents who will help him lead his party and manage any potential dramas that will derail the dream of taking the Elysée in 2027.
First up, Aurélien Pradié, who came in third place with 22% of the vote, is one of the candidates who promoted the idea of a popular right and came in behind Bruno Retailleau, who placed second with 46%.
Retailleau has criticised the new structure for “not [taking] into account the balances resulting from the ballot,” which led to Ciotti getting creative with his choices and pushing for the second vice president to be MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, a close ally of the runner-up.
“The organization chart of @ECiotti does not take into account the balances resulting from the vote. Our agreements are not respected. I regret. Trust is the essential prerequisite for unity.”
With her high-level of popularity, Rachida Dati saw herself promoted to the head of the national council, with Ciotti being clear that with her being “undoubtedly the most popular figure in our political family today … [she] also embodies the hope of seeing us conquer the capital … [which] will be a major step towards national victories
Annie Genevard, the interim head of LR, has now become the Secretary General of the party, while Michel Barnier, the former European negotiator for Brexit, is in charge of all International Relations.
For the rest, there will be a general effort to integrate the major actors within the party, such as the presumptive nominee for 2027, Laurent Wauquiez, the rebel Xavier Bertrand, and former Presidential Election candidate, Valérie Pécresse.
“We are an opposition party with the vocation of once again becoming a party of government and of the right. We are not intended to be the auxiliaries of a power that is ending its course”
Eric Ciotti, President of Les Républicains
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