Massive protests in France against a firm Macron in his pension reform

Is “as if we didn’t exist”, laments Laurence Briens, one of the hundreds of thousands of people who protested this Thursday against the pension reform of the liberal president Emmanuel Macron, whom the unions accuse of wanting to set the streets on fire.

In the absence of official data, the CGT union estimated 800,000 protesters in Paris, where there were occasional clashes with the police, as in other cities such as Nantes or Rennes, in a context of strong social tension.

The unions called for a ninth day of strike and demonstration, the first since Macron decided to adopt by decree a week ago the tightening of the rules to collect a full pension.

Fearing that he would lose the vote in Parliament, he decided to impose the delay of the retirement age from 62 to 64 years by 2030 and the increase in the contribution to 43 years, and not 42 as now, by 2027, by virtue of a legal provision and controversy.

“I am very angry”, “they have treated us like children”, says Briens, in Paris. This 61-year-old speech therapist decided to speak out after hearing Macron’s long-awaited and followed interview on Wednesday: “It was as if we did not exist, as if he did not listen to us”.

The president said to assume the “unpopularity“of a reform that he wants to see applied”by the end of the year” for him “general interest”, and charged against the unions, the opposition and against the most radical protesters, which he compared to “seditious”.

The leader of the CGT union, Philippe Martinez, accused him of “put a can of gasoline on the fire”, especially when for a week, several cities have registered undeclared protests marked by the burning of containers and accusations of police violence.

CFDT union leader Laurent Berger called for “nonviolent actions” in order not to lose the majority support of public opinion.

The unions have been the spearhead of the protest since January and on March 7 they managed to mobilize 1.28 million people, according to the authorities, in the largest protests against social reform in three decades.

On Wednesday they received the support of some 300 cultural professionals, including actresses Juliette Binoche and Camille Cottin, who in a forum published in the newspaper Libération called for the withdrawal of a reform “unfair”.

But this Thursday’s demonstration is announced to be crucial to find out if they will be able to keep the mobilization against a reform alive, which awaits the final approval of the Constitutional Council.

The police anticipatebetween 600,000 and 800,000 people” in France.

“How to teach democracy?”

As a symbol of the prevailing atmosphere, the song “Motivés” by the group Zebda resounds at the Parisian demonstration, whose verse reads: “Motivated, motivated, you have to stay motivated”. The banners against the reform of the first marches gave way to criticism of Macron.

Cédric Nothias, a 46-year-old secondary school teacher, carries a banner with the question: “How to teach democracy when Macron tramples on it?”. “I must teach that France is a democratic republic“, something “difficult” because “in practice it is not respected“, the Mint.

The saga of the pension reform entered a phase of wear and tear, with an inflexible government eager to leave behind the social conflict and an opposition –political, union, and popular– willing to keep up the pulse and, even, to harden it. .

The strikes caused strong disturbances this Thursday in public transport in Paris and the cancellation of half of high-speed trains, the closure of schools, the blockade of high schools and universities, and the closure of monuments such as the Eiffel Tower.

Given the blockades for days in warehouses and refineries, the government ordered some strikers to return to work to alleviate the lack of fuel at 15% of gas stations and the “criticism” Kerosene supply situation at Paris airports.

Paris continues with thousands of tons of garbage accumulated in the streets, days before the arrival of King Carlos III who kept his trip, the occasional roadblocks and the blockade of ports spread, among other actions.

The government now hopes that the mobilizationdecay“and everything goes back to normal”weekend”. The unions are not throwing in the towel and will decide the next steps at night.