Nearly a thousand people were out in the streets this Tuesday, responding to the call of several unions to urge the government to withdraw the Labor Law bill.
Clearly, the use of Article 49-3 of the Constitution, which allows for the adaptation of a text (in this case, the Labor Law) without the vote of deputies, is not going down well at all.
Several unions, opposed to this law, called for a demonstration in Nice today, starting from the SNCF train station.
The protest brought together several hundred people who are demanding the withdrawal of this bill. A new day of protest is planned for this Thursday.
The consequences of resorting to Article 49-3 go far beyond the El Khomri law or, previously, the Macron law. They challenge the balance of powers and the credibility of representative democracy in France.
The legislative power, supposed to control government action, is deprived of its prerogative to amend and vote on a law and is artificially relegated to a nearly unreachable power of censure. This repeated curtailing of the legislative power comes after the judicial power has also been weakened by the Intelligence Law and the continuously extended state of emergency. What is at stake here is nothing less than the balance of powers in France, with the executive power emerging excessively strengthened by this mandate.
More broadly, successive denials of democracy since the disregard for the referenda vote in 2005 on the European Constitutional Treaty, the behaviors of the political caste, the mores of the political class, cronyism, corruption, or simply failing to keep promises only reinforce the rejection of the current media-political system. This rejection fuels at least three phenomena: the far right, abstention, and the temptation of direct democracy.
The National Front vote is fed by the rejection of the system, a rejection all the stronger as democracy is weak. The more the people are flouted, the more the FN rises. And even though the FN demonstrates year after year that it is a party like any other with regards to internal power struggles, advantages, and dubious financial practices, it nevertheless remains the main electoral beneficiary of the disrespect for popular will.
Abstention, constantly on the rise, takes on new faces. Besides disinterested abstention, there is a refusal-based abstention: a refusal to participate in a sham of citizen decision-making power, a refusal to endorse the existing system. Informed citizens, engaged in the associative world, now practice “militant abstentionism.” Resorting to Article 49-3 only confirms their inner conviction, reinforcing and legitimizing their withdrawal from electoral participation.
The temptation of direct democracy is strong and also accompanies a massive rejection of political personnel and mores. Ideas of random selection, a constituent assembly, citizen control, and the revocability of elected officials are strongly supported. Several parties and leftist figures advocate these new ideas, and many of us are calling for a Sixth Republic.
If the challenge to the El Khomri law through parliamentary channels fails on the altar of 49-3, only union action and Nuit Debout remain for protest. Nuit Debout develops a practice of direct democracy, sometimes in complete distrust of representative democracy. Young citizens there discover collective action in the rejection of all representation and the fear of political and media co-optation. In Nice, the debates over a possible Nuit Debout candidacy for partial legislative elections and, eventually, its withdrawal, are telling. Nuit Debout oscillates between experimental direct democracy and representative democracy.
As we see, the resorting to Article 49-3 contributes to a worst-case policy, totally irresponsible during these times of economic, social, and identity crises. Disrupting the balance of powers and weakening representative democracy is dangerous. At best, this process will strengthen citizen experiments from which an alternative may emerge, like Nuit Debout. At worst, it will massively drive abstention and its electoral corollary: the rise of the FN.
by David Nakache
