How many town halls will be mobilized on Tuesday, January 31, as part of the challenge to the pension reform? ” Hundreds “ of them will close their doors, pay their agents on strike or hang a banner of support, said Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, on Sunday January 29. “If there are 100 municipalities out of 36,000 which declare themselves “solidarity town hall”, this shows that it is a flop in terms of mobilization…”, retorted, Monday, the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion. But Christophe Béchu is not surprised: “Many mayors do not confuse their function with their opinions. »
Since, on January 24, Fabien Roussel launched his appeal to the mayors, the government has been on the offensive. Not a minister who has since seized the microphone held out to him to say all the bad things he thought about this initiative. “Surreal”, “aberrant”, “scandalous”, castigated the Minister of Transport on Sunday. Calling the case a ” very serious “Clément Beaune said: “A town hall that decides that it is she who chooses, in place of everyone, whether he or she goes on strike”it is “unacceptable” and “total confusion of minds”.
The same day, on BFM-TV, the Minister of the Interior considered “we must never take our fellow citizens hostage”. Gérald Darmanin sees “a form of disrespect for democratic pluralism when mayors use for political, partisan purposes, the general interest that is a municipality”. Two days earlier, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, criticized the socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who had announced that the Hôtel de ville would be partially closed on January 31, of confusing “municipal services with an annex of the Socialist Party”.
Solidarity fund
The burden is commensurate with the concern that seizes the executive at the idea that the country could be blocked or “bordered”, to use Gérald Darmanin’s expression. Even though they are ” one hundred “, the protesting mayors would be an ultra-minority. But the initiative is striking. And, above all, it quickly spread to many mayors on the left and even to the center right, assures Fabien Roussel. “The mayors are fed up”justified the deputy of the North. “It should question the government about the depth of the anger that exists in the country”he warned.
Communist mayor of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), Patrice Bessac has decided to close “all municipal services” at noon. He announced this to his constituents by quoting Ambroise Croizat, the minister who set up Social Security in 1945: “Retirement should no longer be the antechamber of death, but a new stage in life. » But, he recalls, “we see that at the current legal retirement age, 25% of the poorest have already died compared to 5% of the richest…” Evoking the social struggles of the country, he challenges: “We must fight! »
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