⚖️Weekly Dispatch - State Action
⚖️Weekly Dispatch - State Action
16 April 2023 - The Constitutional Council validates the pension reform law, the Unions continue the fight, there's wide-spread pollution of the French water supply, and Fabien Roussel is re-elected
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This week
⚖️The Constitutional Council validates the Pension Reform
💧Wide-spread pollution of the French water supply
🗳️Fabien Roussel re-elected as National Secretary
⚖️The Constitutional Council validates the pension reform
Ladies and gentlemen, the Pension reform saga is moving on to the next stage of its story.
With the Constitutional Council validating most of the pension reform law and French President Emmanuel Macron promulgating the law, the “democratic and legal process” is supposedly completed.
But wait! There’s still plenty of political and legal drama that could break out, which you can read about in this very handy dispatch:
Of course, since then, there have been several developments!
Firstly, President Macron announced that he would speak on Monday 17 April at 20h00, where he will “take stock” of the last three months and “look at what has advanced alongside pensions,” all while speaking “in a logic of appeasement”.
At least, according to Olivier Véran.
The Prime Minister, for her part, spoke at the National Council for the Renaissance party yesterday to give everyone an idea of what to expect in the comings weeks and months:
“In the weeks and months to come, around the President of the Republic, we are ready to accelerate…We want to build a France of full employment … [and] …guarantee equal opportunities”
The Unions, naturally, aren’t so sure they’re happy to move on.
Sophie Binet, General Secretary of the CGT, declared that Macron promulgating the law despite the Unions “solemnly [asking] the president not to” was “totally shameful” and stated that Macron was “becoming the president of chaos … [opening] a boulevard to the Rassemblement National”.
La France Insoumise, likewise, isn’t keen on letting things slide, and Eric Coquerel (LFI), announced that the La France Insoumise group was discussing filing yet another censure motion against the government with the Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories (LIOT) group and their NUPES colleagues.
Regardless, protests are being planned here, there and everywhere, with an inter-union protest planned for International Workers’ Day on May 1st, with hopes being pinned on this being “a day of exceptional and popular mobilization”
However, the big question on everyone’s mind now is how the government and the President can reconnect with the unions and regain the confidence of a group that has entrenched itself in ferocious opposition.
💧Wide-spread pollution of the French water supply
However, aside from the politics, there are other serious problems facing the French state, with a report recently announcing that a third of the drinking water in the country does not comply with quality regulations.
The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) launched an investigation after public water utility companies sounded the alarm over the high concentrations of a metabolite derived from Chlorothalonil. This fungicidal pesticide was banned across Europe in 2019.
In this report, ANSES confirmed the widespread presence in surface and groundwater and,, even worse, confirmed the failure of conventional treatment systems to eliminate said metabolites.
This has put the French state in a tough situation where it now needs to deal with the fact that a large portion of the French population is using and drinking tap water that fails to comply with regulatory quality criteria.
It will be interesting to see how the state and public water producers deal with this issue, with Le Monde quoting a potential price tag in the billions of Euros.
🗳️Fabien Roussel re-elected as National Secretary
We have a feel-good story today from our favourite communist politician coming out of one of France’s most famous and beautiful cities: Marseille
This Monday saw former presidential candidate and National Secretary of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, win his reelection as head of the Parti Communiste Français with 80.4% of the vote, or 540 out of 672.
He was effusive with his statements of the “honour” bestowed upon him by his party and announced that he “[aspired] to be worthy of the trust” the militants had placed on him.
Having led the party since November 2018, he has presented a strong presence across the media. He has been increasingly assertive within the NUPES coalition, facing off with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) with impressive regularity.
At the opening of the PCF congress on Friday 14 April, Roussel criticised the “outdated” attitude that LFI has and demanded that they “mind [their] own business” while calling for the PCF to “clarify” their position in the field of left-wing politics.
Naturally, this led to a reaction Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he decried the “incredible aggressiveness” coming from the PCF leaders and complained that it had “been going on for three years on all counts, before and since Nupes”.
Which is a very interesting complaint from Mr La Republique, known for his verbal and physical aggressiveness towards anybody critical of him.
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