Miguel Angel Sandoval
In France that is burning with rage, what there is is a project to reduce the retirement age and, in this way, increase the quotas to be paid for it, which originate from Macron’s commitments with the EU, to keep the fiscal deficit at 3% without affecting the economic figures of each country. It happens that, in France, what Macron is doing is trying to carry this financial adjustment on the shoulders of the workers, without stopping to think that if something is deeply respected in that country, it is the labor rights acquired by generations, which cannot be destroyed by a management, above all mediocre, like that of Macron.
But the underlying issue is that a reform that affects all the inhabitants of that country cannot be passed over the will of the majority. And this is what Macron does. He did not understand the history of social struggles in France at all and nothing. As one protester said: I voted for Macron against Le Pen, but not for what he is doing. In France there are options. Today the main one is to leave Macron’s reform in the drawers, and then understand that you cannot live if the government favors the higher income class, and cuts taxes on them. Additionally, there is military spending, which people rightly ask, for what? Well, 400 billion Euros are not just anything. Less to prop up a war like the one in Ukraine for following US orders via the EU.
It is a fact that France and Israel are two countries with different government systems, with different histories, with interests that could never be the same, but there is a common fact that seems relevant to discuss. In the two countries – which claim to be liberal democracy – there are issues that are intended to be resolved with their backs to the people, without their participation and even less with their consent. And in truth, one of the tools of democracy is the participation of the people in everything. It is obvious that sometimes, and this is the case in general, it is via representation, but there are occasions when representation is limited by social demands. This is the case today in France and Israel.
The Israelis took to the streets in protest against a reform to the judicial system that would seek to limit the functions of the judicial career to give greater power of intervention to the political establishment. If there is corruption involved, these types of measures are counterproductive. This is what we see, in the first approach to the legal issues that lead people to protest en masse in various cities in Israel. Forcing Netanyahu to withdraw the proposal from him.
Now, from different schools of thought, it is said, with their hands on their hips, that, in France, two more years of work is nothing, that it is a pity that the French workers rise up and burn the garbage dumps, etc. Without realizing that what Macron approves in a pure vest, is something against the whole of society that is fed up, says enough is enough. Stretching the argument, it could be said that if Saturday is suppressed here as a holiday and the law, approved by Congress, opts to work on Saturday, some would agree, because one more day is nothing, and others would go to the streets to defend one of the few labor rights that we have left, after the neoliberal wave in the country.
And the big issue is that democracy cannot go against the people, even with the fact that there is representation granted to certain instances, such as the legislature or the judiciary. But this cannot work by force, without social consensus, with expressions of force or corruption. It is a debate about the limits of the institutions and the legitimacy of the measures that are adopted. And as a great actor in this, the organized society that participates, protests and demands that democracy have other results and other benefits for the people, not just cuts, limitations, democratic losses. Reflections this fact.
