Authoritarian Drift

Until now, Macron has somehow escaped another large-scale social movement. Over the last year, we have not seen anything akin to the Gilets Jaunes revolt that marked his first term, or — early in his second term — the months-long protests in 2023 against the unjustified hike in the pension age.

Surely, the president’s gamble on calling a snap parliamentary election in June 2024 — seeking to strengthen his own Macronist camp or, failing that, to govern in cohabitation together with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National — ended in failure. In that election, the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) won more seats than either. But there was also political deadlock, with three camps vying for power and even the NFP well short of an absolute majority. This situation allowed Macron to regain control. Overriding conventions which require him to appoint a prime minister from the largest political camp, he forged a minority alliance with the conservative Républicains, initially under right-wing prime minister Michel Barnier.

In this government, Macron’s allies and the Républicains formed a so-called central bloc. Yet its stubbornness in defending the interests of the oligarchy and cutting tens of billions of euros in spending (except army and security budgets) soon led to a no-confidence vote against Barnier. His government was felled after just three months in office. Still, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic again came to the rescue in allowing the executive to override such parliamentary obstacles. Macron immediately appointed another prime minister — Bayrou — who pursued the same policy and passed the 2025 budget by resorting to Article 49.3 (a measure allowing it to proceed without a vote).

Bayrou sought to avoid the same fate as Barnier, and to this end resorted to fearmongering about instability and financial-market attacks on French debt. He also benefited from the tolerance shown by his apparent political adversaries. Both Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, whose economic program is now barely distinguishable from that of the central bloc, and also the center-left Parti Socialiste, always more concerned with appearing “serious” to the ruling classes than with respecting pledges to its voters, agreed not to topple his government in confidence votes. In exchange, they received the most meager concessions.

What were they? Key was a so-called conclave on revisiting the 2023 pension reform. Yet it quickly went up in smoke: the government imposed a strict austerian framework and, counting on the employers’ federation to represent it, immediately locked down the discussions with the unions. They almost all eventually abandoned the talks, apart from the employers’ unions and the most conciliatory trade unions, notably the Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT), whose secretary general says she does not regret “having played the game of social dialogue.”

Even given the chance, the Rassemblement National and Parti Socialiste did not vote down Bayrou’s government. This, combined with the unions’ being cornered into the farce of the “conclave,” allowed him to eke out a few months in power. Throughout these months, all politically risky issues have been postponed. Until now.

Popular Rebellion

France had already seen the ignoring of the 2005 national referendum vote against the EU Constitution, the increasing use of Article 49.3 to bypass parliament, and disregard for the results of the ballot box. The tools of participatory democracy are in turn being trampled upon: such was the fate of the Citizens’ Convention for Climate, a forum created by the government in response to the Gilets Jaunes movement but soon after buried by Macron.

Faced with this rising authoritarianism and relentless austerity, calls emerged on social media to launch a major social movement on September 10. After the Gilets Jaunes protests, initially triggered by a fuel tax hike, this time what really galvanized anger was the government’s proposal to cancel two bank holidays. But the embers were hot even before this extra spark. The majority of French society suffers both inflation making life more unaffordable and the constant weakening of their public services. Add to this the constant scandals across successive governments, and revelations about the €211 billion per year in public aid to business — not to mention the generally arrogant tone of those in high office.

The September 10 initiative comes neither from parties nor trade unions, much like the Gilets Jaunes movement of 2018–2019, which was the largest social movement in France since May 1968. The stated demands — for tax justice, for the introduction of citizens’ initiative referendums (RIC), higher wages, and confrontation with the European Union — are also reminiscent of the popular anger of seven years ago, as are the calls for the blockading of logistics hubs and transport routes and calls for a general strike. Most French people do not put much faith in elections, which have resulted in a deadlock that allows institutions to continue functioning without democratic legitimacy, or from the trade unions, whose sporadic “strike days” failed to block the 2023 pension reform. In the streets, at least, they can have their say, despite police repression.

It is still difficult to tell how large this social movement will be, who will take part, what form it will take, and how long it will last. In any case, the determination of the supporters of the September 10 movement to avoid any political “recuperation” is enough to make the government tremble, as it will have no interlocutors to appease. France Insoumise, followed by the Communists and the Greens, has announced their support for the movement, while also being sure to respect its autonomy, thus learning the lessons of the Gilets Jaunes. But contrary to press claims — already accusing France Insoumise’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon of seeking chaos in the streets —he will have little sway over a movement that seems to bear more similarities with the self-organized revolt in Serbia than a party affair.

Cards for Macron to Play

The two months since the first calls for action have surely allowed the authorities time to prepare. Alongside plans to deploy riot police, a “defense council on information warfare” and foreign interference has also been announced for September 10, raising fears of measures to block social networks if the movement grows threatening. TikTok was blocked during the social revolt in New Caledonia last year, and the government also considered cutting off mobile Internet. Even the founder of Telegram was arrested (before being released on parole) in France last year in order to force greater cooperation with the police.

Knowing that repression cannot alone suffice, Macron has decided to sacrifice Prime Minister Bayrou. He did so without much sentimentality: to start with, Bayrou had only secured appointment by threatening to withdraw his Modem party’s support from the government alliance. As the president now forces Bayrou to seek a vote of confidence from deputies in the National Assembly on September 8, he is simply preempting a censure motion tabled by France Insoumise, scheduled for two weeks later, which would surely have brought down the government anyhow.

Not just France Insoumise, the Communists, and the Greens, but also the Parti Socialiste and Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, have now announced that they will not vote confidence in Bayrou, effectively dooming his government to collapse. By bringing forward the timetable for all this, Macron hopes that the no-confidence vote on September 8 — the second in nine months — will make it possible to contain the blockages planned for September 10.

This is where uncertainty remains: for if the mobilization is not strong, Macron will still be able to continue dismantling public services and selling off France piece by piece. Even if the government loses a confidence vote, it may not leave office immediately: this prospect was highlighted after the summer 2024 parliamentary election, as Gabriel Attal’s government promised to resign but did so only after a two-month delay, showing how flexible the Fifth Republic’s rules can be. More likely, Macron may just appoint another right-wing prime minister, retaining the same ministers and, most importantly, the same political line. This rapid succession of governments illustrates how much the problem lies with the president rather than his ephemeral prime ministers. Sixty-seven percent of French people are calling for Macron to resign.

Yet even if France did become severely gridlocked, Macron would again have another card to play: calling another snap election. Having already lost many of his deputies last year, and well short of a majority, Macron has little to lose. The Rassemblement National may turn out the winner: and yet this may even suit Macron, who would surely prefer a cohabitation with the far-right party’s aspirant prime minister Jordan Bardella than to allow a left-wing government to redistribute wealth. While elections are never a bad thing, the chances are slim that a vote now will achieve political clarity and an outright majority for any one camp. But for those in power, this option also serves to channel political and media energy toward electoral battles rather than social mobilization. In the meantime, a technocratic government could in any case implement the austerity measures demanded by the European Commission.

Market Worries?

To push through its increasingly unpopular policies, the oligarchy and its representatives are now working to undermine confidence in France’s public debt. They insist that France is bankrupt and that the financial markets will soon no longer lend to us, except at the most prohibitive rates. Media are already serving up graphs on the “spreads” (differences in interest rates) between France, Germany, Italy, and Greece, and quizzing experts about the risk of France falling under IMF supervision.

This is rather surreal, given that market demand for French public debt is still high, that the cost of debt remains moderate, and there are many possible solutions. These could include a cut in the European Central Bank’s key interest rates, the cancellation of the debts that it holds, a different fiscal policy to replenish state coffers, or protectionist measures that would reduce France’s trade deficit and boost the budget. Yet these avenues have never been seriously debated.

This refrain about France-on-the-brink-of-bankruptcy is actually aimed at creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that financial markets love: if France’s interest rates start to rise, other lenders will consider the risk to be higher and demand a higher premium, fueling a vicious cycle. The proponents of austerity will then be able to invoke the “debt burden” to justify yet further budget cuts, which in turn will weaken the economy by destroying demand and investment. This is an effective method of privatization, already successfully tested in many European countries over the past fifteen years.

To avoid this, social mobilization will have to be mass in scale and organized around clear objectives. While opposition to Bayrou’s proposed budget currently unites supporters of the September 10 protests, the government has plenty of ways to divide them, for example by allowing violence to escalate in order to terrorize peaceful participants or by proposing to “increase net wages” by eliminating social security contributions.

Strong and coherent demands are needed in order to derail such sabotage. On the political front, demands like Macron’s resignation, the introduction of citizens’ initiative referendums, and the transition to a Sixth Republic will be essential to stopping the current authoritarian drift. Economically, there is no shortage of proposals for tax justice, but redistribution alone cannot solve the ills of the French economy, which also needs protectionism and massive investment in reindustrialization. In such areas, intellectuals and competent political figures can also usefully make proposals.

The Right Balance

The relationship between traditional organizations, particularly parties and unions, and the mobilization of a largely nonaffiliated and nonunionized population is a key question, here. In reality, each camp will rely on the other.

The movement’s participants need representation, and an antiparliamentarian stand is doomed to impasse: without access to legislative power, any hope of transforming society will be in vain. Still, the left-wing parties that have supported the movement have every interest in not seeking to infiltrate and control it. They risk hardening the rejection of parties and finding themselves limited to their usual activists, who simply don’t have the numbers to force Macron to heel. Initial statements in this sense — Mélenchon, for example, speaks of “helping and serving the movement” while avoiding “co-opting” it —are encouraging. It remains to be seen how they will translate in practice.

The same question arises with the unions. Their experience can be useful to first-time protesters, and their presence, even if limited, in certain strategic sectors (transport, energy, refineries, waste management, etc.) is decisive if we want to “block everything.” However, the opaque strategies of the trade union federations, often more directed to seeking a “social dialogue” with employers and government than leveraging popular anger for a confrontation, have squandered many workers’ confidence in them.

Lessons need learning from the failure of the mobilization against the pension reform. There was a victory in terms of people’s thinking — a huge majority of French people opposed a reform whose implications they well understood — and even in terms of deputies, since it was impossible to secure a parliamentary majority for the text. In such circumstances, the unions had a responsibility to organize popular anger by blocking the country. Most citizens were ready for this, as evidenced by the days of mobilization that brought as many as three million people into the streets, and the historically high donations to the strike funds. However, the unions that are usually the most combative, such as the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and Solidaires, preferred to maintain the unity of the interunion alliance at all costs, thus aligning themselves with the losing strategy of “selective strikes” promoted by the CFDT.

Solidaires and the CGT, pushed by its most militant federations (chemicals, mining and energy, commerce), have announced that they will join the movement on September 10 by going on strike. Yet, the other unions are not joining these calls. Of course, the loss of wages and employer repression make it advisable not to make general strike calls too readily, at the risk of discouraging the troops. However, given the current social climate, it seems that the iron is hot — and just waiting to be struck.