Less than three weeks before the presidential elections and while France has been experiencing high inflation for several months, 3,000 retirees demonstrated this Thursday in the streets of Paris. Unions and demonstrators have called for an increase in pensions, better access to health and public services.
The government has plenty to worry about. It was in any case the majority color in the crowd which went this Thursday, in Paris, from the Place de la Bastille to that of the Republic in response to the call for a national mobilization launched by nine unions and organizations including CGT, FO or Snes-FSU. According to the CGT, 3,000 people marched in Paris, 40,000 throughout France.
Before the departure of the procession, place de la Bastille, the retirees prepare for the march. “In the absence of cobblestones, we have whistles”, laughs a demonstrator precisely in charge of distributing plastic whistles and multicolored cords. Antonio Oneto, 72, came to demonstrate “for our retreats and our purchasing power, and against the CSG [contribution sociale généralisée prélevée sur les pensions de retraite, ndlr] and against Macron”. This sums up well the demands of the entire procession. A former construction worker, he touches “a retirement of misery” : “Once I’ve paid my rent and my fixed charges, I have about enough to eat until halfway through the month.” With 840 euros in rent, 106 euros in mutual insurance and a hundred euros in bills, his pension of 1,470 euros is then mostly spent. “I deprive myself of food, care, admits Antonio, I do what I can.” The automatic revaluation of his pension on January 1, 2022, raised by barely twenty euros, Antonio did not feel it.
“In ten years, we have lost almost a month of pension”
The question of purchasing power was by far the first concern of the procession. For them, pensions do not keep up with inflation: “We had a revaluation of 1.1% this year, but there was 4% inflation [en mars], emphasizes Didier Hotte, deputy general secretary of Force Ouvrière. In ten years we have lost nearly 10% of the initial amount of our pensions, i.e. almost a month’s pension. Currently indexed to inflation – the revaluation in January took into account movements in the price index from November 2020 to October 2021 –, the unions are asking for them to be on wages, which are increasing more quickly as well as “catching up” on this amount lost over the previous ten years. If the slogans sometimes have trouble taking hold among the demonstrators of the third age, the procession heads towards the Place de la République in apparent good humor, to the rhythm of the Song of the partisans and under the sometimes amused gaze of passers-by. A small white-haired woman slowly walks through the crowd, a red scarf tied around her neck, slipping between the police and the other demonstrators.
Programs 2022: all the way to the bottom
Logo red cap “CGT” screwed on the skull and matching pin hung on his chest, Joseph Scaramozzino, 70, has been a member of the union for forty years. Before, he worked for Social Security, “to the pension fund”, he says with a smile without needing to point out the irony of the situation. With a pension of around 1,500 euros, he too must constantly watch his expenses: “I’m very careful when I’m shopping, I look at all the prices. Especially right now. Taking the car to go for a walk is very complicated. Not to mention gas and electricity prices… he regrets. They tell us to lower the heating by 1 degree but we don’t need them to do that. The retiree is also worried, for the next generations, of the potential shift in the legal retirement age to 65 years desired by Emmanuel Macron. “65 years old is not normal,he lets go. We already don’t have the same life expectancy when we’re a worker. And at that age, we don’t have the same fishing.”