PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron is aiming to calm public anger that threatens the ambitions of his remaining four years in power with a first televised address to the nation on Monday since he enacted protest-igniting pension reforms.
The evening address kicks off a likely arduous battle for the second-term president to repair the damage done to his public image and legislative plans by forcing through an increase in France’s retirement age from 62 to 64.
Opponents of the unpopular reform called for people to bang pots and pans outside government offices during the address, with the rallying cry: “Macron won’t listen to us? We won’t listen to him!”
Weakened in parliament, where his camp lost its absolute majority in legislative elections last year, Macron’s government needs to reconstruct alliances of lawmakers to push ahead with his legislative program. That’s likely to be an uphill task in the uproarious climate of protest sparked by his retirement changes that pick at France’s cherished social safety net.
Labor unions that have been at the forefront of protests, mobilizing millions of marchers in 12 days of nationwide demonstrations and strikes since January, are vowing to fight on. They called for another mass protest on May 1, which is International Workers’ Day.
The pension changes were enacted into law Saturday, after months of upheaval, the day after the country’s constitutional body rejected some parts of the legislation but approved the higher minimum retirement age.
That key change — central to Macron’s plan and the focus of opponents’ protests — was intended to be a showcase measure of Macron’s second term. But it has come at significant cost to Macron: Opinion polls show the president’s popularity has plunged to its lowest level in four years.
His government argued that requiring people to work two years more before qualifying for a pension was needed to keep the pension system afloat as the population ages. Opponents proposed raising taxes on the wealthy or employers instead.
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Macron speaks: French leader aims to calm pension storm
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Macron speaks: French leader aims to calm pension storm
- Opponents of the unpopular pension reform are calling for people to bang pots and pans outside government offices during Macron’s address
Zimbabwe opposition says constitutional ‘coup’ under way
- The accusations came after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office
HARARE: Leading Zimbabwe opposition figures accused the government Wednesday of a constitutional “coup” after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
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