French unions threaten to shut down the country on March 7 in protest of Macron’s pension reform

France lives this Saturday the fourth day of massive mobilizations against the pension reform of the Government of Emmanuel Macron, called by the unions, who await the adhesion of a million people in the country. The day of demonstrations has begun with marches in different cities of the country, where about 250 are summoned.

The unions threaten to shut down the country on March 7 if the reform project, which has begun the parliamentary process. In a statement read to the press, the leaders of the eight large power plants in the country confirmed that the next day 16 they will once again organize strikes and parades through the streets of the country and that they hope that this rejection and their determination to continue their protests against the reform will be enough to stop it.

“It’s a form of warning”, underlined the secretary general of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, the country’s second central), Philippe Martínez, who insisted that they ask “the Government, the President of the Republic and parliamentarians that they reject this text in view of this important mobilization”. The inter-union in its statement underlines that “if despite all the government and parliamentarians turn a deaf ear to the popular response, workers and women workers, young people and retirees will be summoned to harden the movement by paralyzing all sectors in France next March 7″.

Asked what it means to stop the country, Laurent Berger, general secretary of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT, the first union in France), replied that while up to now the mobilizations have mainly resulted in demonstrations, on March 7 things would change.

Macron’s reform, which began its processing this week before the plenary session of the National Assembly, provides in the first place the delay of the minimum retirement age of 62 years currently at 64. Also an acceleration of the already scheduled increase in the contribution period necessary to collect a full pension, from 42 to 43 years. What will not change is the retirement age of 67 years so as not to have a penalty in the pension if the full contribution period has not been covered.