Macron cajoles teachers, demonstrators kept at a distance

April 20, 2023

Trying to reconnect with the French and the field, Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday in the Hérault an increase as soon as the return of the teachers’ remuneration, not without having been challenged again by the inhabitants and hundreds of demonstrators opposed to the reform of the retreats.

After having discussed at length with teachers, parents and students, the president announced an “unconditional increase” in remuneration of 100 to 230 euros net monthly for teachers, “at all career levels” and “from the start of the school year”.

For two hours, the Head of State listened for a long time, taking notes, to the members of the educational community of the Louise-Michel de Ganges college, seated in a circle around him on chairs hastily installed in the courtyard of break. The electricity had indeed been cut in the establishment, on the initiative of the CGT.

The announced increase will be increased “up to 500 euros per month” for those who accept new missions, on a voluntary basis, added the Head of State, without giving further details.

“It’s very insufficient”, reacted Sophie Vénétitay, secretary general of Snes-FSU, the first union of the second degree (colleges and high schools), for whom “Emmanuel Macron does not keep the promise of 10% increase for all world”.

The head of state did not meet the hundreds of noisy demonstrators gathered in the morning in the city center when he arrived, a procession held at a good distance from the college by the police.

Whistles, vuvuzelas, smoke bombs… but no saucepans. Some were confiscated by gendarmes while a prefectural decree prohibited “portable sound devices”.

“We are here”, “Macron resignation”, chanted the protesters in this town of 4,000 inhabitants in the foothills of the Cévennes, CGT flags, Unsa education, Snes-FSU and black balloons as a sign of mourning in hand. Some threw eggs and potatoes at the police.

“Eggs and saucepans are just for cooking at home,” commented Emmanuel Macron on his arrival, in a short exchange with the LFI deputy for the constituency, Sébastien Rome, who told him: “The resistance ( is) a little far away, you can’t hear it, but it’s there”.

The day before in Alsace, Emmanuel Macron had been violently booed and attacked during his first walkabout in weeks. A return to the field decided after the promulgation of its reform bringing the legal retirement age to 64 years.

After making the distinction between “disagreement” and “incivility” in the protest, the head of state made an unannounced visit to the small town of Pérols to further “explain” the reform and take selfies with children.

“I’m not going to resign,” he assured a woman who expressed her disagreement with pensions. “You don’t give a shit about what the people want to claim,” she retorted.

The president also expressed reservations about the commitment made by his Prime Minister, during an interview with AFP, to no longer use 49.3 outside financial texts.

“I am not responsible for the Prime Minister’s interviews with AFP,” said the head of state, who however renewed his “trust” in him.

By launching his “hundred days” project in an attempt to close the parenthesis of the pension crisis, Emmanuel Macron promised on Monday that the school would change “visibly” from September.

From the presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron had put forward two tracks: an “unconditional” increase of 10% in wages and an increase linked to new missions, called “pact”.

But all the trade unions had slammed the door of the negotiations in March on the “pact” part, refusing the “work more to earn more”.

“We are quite far from the mark”, because with a 10% increase, “we are barely going through a year of inflation”, reacted the deputy Sébastien Rome.

Throughout France, the challenge to the postponement of the retirement age to 64 does not disarm. Some 5,000 people according to the unions, 1,200 according to the police, demonstrated in Rennes Thursday in the form of a “heating tower” before the mobilization of May 1 at the call of the inter-union.

At the same time, about 300 railway workers and strikers from other sectors briefly invaded the lobby of the Euronext tower at La Défense near Paris, which they flooded with smoke bombs. And later, a demonstration started from the Town Hall, strong of several hundred people.

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