Demonstration against pension reform in Bordeaux, February 11, 2023 (AFP / THIBAUD MORITZ)
Mobilizations more family and on the rise. With this fourth day of action against the pension reform organized on a Saturday, the unions have won their bet and are maintaining their pressure on the executive, saying they are ready to “bring France to a halt” on March 7.
The demonstrations gathered 963,000 people in France, including 93,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The CGT has identified for its part 500,000 people in the Parisian procession, and “more than 2.5 million” at the national level. The Occurrence firm, which carried out a count for a media collective including AFP, counted 112,000 demonstrators in Paris.
Whatever the source, the figures at the national level are higher than those of the previous day of February 7 (nearly 2 million, according to the CGT and 757,000, according to the authorities).
“I’m here because it’s Saturday, the week it’s not possible”, explained in the Lyon procession Marie-Pierre Couvreur, 43, an engineer, who came with her three children to show them “that it is necessary to defend oneself”.
The general secretaries of FO Frédéric Souillot (G), CFDT Laurent Berger (C) and CGT Philippe Martinez on February 11, 2023 in Paris during the 4th day of action against pension reform (AFP / Christophe ARCHAMBAULT)
Before the parade left for the capital, the leaders of the eight main unions confirmed their call for a fifth act on February 16. They also said they were ready “to harden the movement” and to “put the country on hold on March 7” if the government and Parliament “remain deaf” to the mobilizations.
According to Philippe Martinez (CGT), “the ball is in the court” of the executive, his CFDT counterpart Laurent Berger adding that “it leaves a little time if they want to react”. For the N.1 of the CFDT, it is a question of “holding rallies in front of companies, ghost town operations” and not of being “in the logic of a renewable strike”.
But the inter-union at the RATP (CGT, FO, UNSA, CFE-CGC) has already called on Saturday for the first renewable strike of the movement, from March 7. The CGT railwaymen plans to do the same.
In the provinces too, the processions gathered more people than on February 7, with a growing gap between the figures of the authorities and the unions, in particular in Marseille (between 12,000 and 140,000) and Toulouse (between 25,000 and 100,000).
As on previous occasions, the parades took place generally in peace, apart from a few incidents in Rennes, Nantes or Paris. 10,000 police and gendarmes were mobilized, including 4,500 in the capital, where 10 people were arrested and a gendarme injured in the eye, according to a report at 6:30 p.m.
A car on fire during the demonstration against pensions in Paris, February 11, 2023 (AFP/Bertrand GUAY)
In the air, one out of two flights was canceled at Orly due to an unforeseen strike by air traffic controllers.
The first three days of action brought together between 757,000 and 1.27 million people according to the authorities (between nearly two million and more than 2.5 million according to the inter-union), without influencing the executive on the flagship measure of the reform, the raising of the legal retirement age to 64 years.
From Brussels, where he was taking part in a European summit, President Emmanuel Macron seemed to be looking elsewhere on Thursday, pleading for “work to continue in Parliament”, without the challenge “blocking (…) the life of the rest of the country”.
– “Macron is in the wrong country” –
The unions, on the contrary, underline the risk of a radicalization of the base and also of a form of “social despair” which results in a vote for the far right at the ballot box.
The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon demonstrates against the pension reform in Marseille, February 11, 2023 (AFP / CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU)
“Mr. Macron, if he is counting on wear and tear, is in the wrong country”, judged in Marseille the leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, considering that his way of acting is “an incitement to violence”.
“If the government does not hear (the mobilization) it is very serious” judged in the Lille procession Fabien Roussel (PCF).
The unions are demanding that in the Assembly, article 7, which bears the age measure, can be put to a vote. But nothing is less certain, while the deputies of Nupes have tabled thousands of amendments, debated in a tumultuous atmosphere.
Demonstration against pension reform in Bordeaux, February 11, 2023 (AFP / THIBAUD MORITZ)
“We want to see who will actually decide for or against” the age measure, said Mr. Martinez, indicating that the unions intend to “call on today” the parliamentarians of the Republican arc so that they measure ” their responsibility”.
In addition to the day of February 16 – when the leaders of the inter-union have planned to demonstrate together in Albi – and the high point of March 7, when the text will have arrived in the Senate, the unions are also considering actions for the 8 March, Women’s Rights Day, “to highlight the major social injustice of this reform”.
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© 2023 AFP
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