2020 looks set to be a miserable year for Emmanuel Macron

Emmanuel Macron’s 2020 ‘to do’ list is nothing if not challenging. Starting with the domestic it offers no respite in its international agenda.

Nation-wide transport strikes opposed to the President’s root and branch pension reform have been paralysing France for 23 days, now longer than the legendary 1995 strike that forced President Chirac to withdraw his pension reform. Neither side looks ready to concede and for the moment public opinion supports the strikers. The economic costs are considerable; for France’s national railway, SNCF, the cost is put at nearly half a billion euros while the broader economic impact on tourism and lost sales during the Christmas period will hit French growth. Although Macron and his Prime Minister refuse to acknowledge that the reform of France’s baroque but extremely generous pension system is motivated by economics, everyone recognises that demographically the system cannot survive in its current form. For a sector that represents 14 per cent of GDP any concessions will require the state to fund still further a bottomless pit.