Why French Unions Aren't Taking To The Streets Like They Used To
When President Emmanuel Macron set out to overhaul France's notoriously rigid labor laws last fall, unions promised crippling strikes to stop him.
All of France, it seemed, was waiting for the showdown.
After all, the country's powerful unions have stopped French leaders from overhauling their cherished work code for decades. In 2016, a succession of strikes and 14 nationwide protests snuffed out President François Hollande's hopes for simplifying the 3,000-page employment code.
Yet just months into the new presidency, Macron sped through the kind of labor changes many of his predecessors could only dream of. The few marches against him were sparsely attended and soon petered out.
The government's next move is to tighten the unemployment benefits system and overhaul the state pension program — and no one is expecting major resistance.
Even the economy is going Macron's way. Along with a global growth
