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Members of parliament hold placards after the result of the vote on the first motion of no-confidence against the French government at the National Assembly in Paris, France, March 20, 2023.

REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

What We’re Watching: Slim win for Macron, protests in South Africa, Trump’s legal woes, Colombia peace collapsing?

Macron’s narrow escape

It came down to the wire, but Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote in France’s National Assembly on Monday, with 278 voting to topple the government, nine votes shy of the threshold needed to pass.

Quick recap: The motion was triggered after Macron used a constitutional provision last week -- bypassing a vote in the lower house -- to pass a controversial pension reform despite weeks of protests (more on that here).

Not only do 70% of French adults abhor Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030 – which he says is necessary to plug the growing debt hole – but the French electorate, which has long had a libertarian streak, is also furious that the government used what it says is an anti-democratic loophole to pass the measure.

Macron’s troubles are only just beginning. Hundreds were arrested in Paris over the weekend and on Monday as anti-government protests turned violent and smelly. Unions have called for nationwide demonstrations and strikes in a bid to pressure the government to roll back the measures (which will never happen).

Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne will likely take the fall and resign. Still, Macron, already unpopular before this debacle, will emerge a diminished political figure. After previously saying he understood that people were “tired of reforms which come from above,” it will be very hard for the ideological chameleon to regain the trust of vast swathes of the population.

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A woman cooks by a candlelight during one of the frequent power outages in South Africa.

REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

South Africa struggles in the dark

Things are dark in South Africa right now, both metaphorically and literally. Though not new, rolling blackouts have worsened in recent months, disrupting every aspect of daily life. With the situation near breaking point, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster in recent days, which allows the government to bypass bureaucratic hurdles to get stuff done.

Why are things so dire in Africa’s most industrialized country, and what’s the government’s plan – if any – to fix it?

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South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa.

REUTERS/Johanna Geron

Viewpoint: Is it a make-or-break year for South Africa’s president?

Eurasia Group's Africa Director Shridaran Pillay looks at the year ahead for President Cyril Ramaphosa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is struggling to resolve numerous deep-rooted problems in South Africa: high unemployment, low economic growth, rolling electricity blackouts, and the wage demands of public-sector unions that continually threaten to derail public finances. But to effectively deal with these challenges, he first must shore up his own political position.

At the ruling African National Congress’s elective conference in December, Ramaphosa will try to obtain a new term as party president and place close allies in other important positions. That would allow him to unify a divided party, press ahead with needed economic reforms, and continue with an anti-corruption campaign aimed at reforming the ANC's image ahead of the 2024 election and sidelining opponents to his agenda.

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