“I don’t want to leave at 64”: from Belfort to Bayonne, opponents of the pension reform marched on Tuesday in processions provided, the unions claiming more demonstrators than on January 19, to try to roll back the government.
All over France, the processions showed the same refusal of Emmanuel Macron’s flagship reform and his postponement of the legal age of departure to 64 years old.
According to the CGT, 2.8 million people marched in the country. In several large cities, such as Montpellier, Nantes, Rennes or Marseille, the participation was higher than that of January 19, during the first mobilization. In Paris, the organizers counted 500,000 demonstrators, when the police headquarters counted 87,000, and the independent firm Occurrence 55,000.
“This is one of the biggest demonstrations organized in our country for decades”, declared Laurent Berger, the number one of the CFDT, noting, shortly before the departure of the Parisian procession around 2:00 p.m., that there was “more people” in the street than 19.
Between one and two million demonstrators according to the sources, had then beaten the pavement.
“In all the feedback I have, it’s more than 19”, added his CGT counterpart Philippe Martinez, while Frédéric Souillot (FO) highlighted a “dam shot”.
“I don’t want to leave at 64, I’m a kindergarten teacher and it’s impossible to teach until so late. We’re always squatting, my knees already hurt”, explains Sandrine Carré, 52 years old in the Bordeaux procession.
According to the figures communicated by the prefectures, they were for example 25,000 in Lyon (against 23,000 on the 19th) or 28,000 in Nantes (against 25,000). In Marseille, some 40,000 people marched, compared to 26,000 on January 19.
Once again, small and medium-sized towns were not lacking in the mobilization such as Alès (7,000), Angoulême (8,500) or Mende (2,200). Some prefectures, however, recorded a lower number of demonstrators such as Clermont-Ferrand or Orléans (8,500 against 12,000) compared to the 19th.
In total, eleven thousand police and gendarmes were mobilized, including 4,000 in Paris. At 6:15 p.m., 23 arrests were recorded in the capital, according to the prefecture. A few incidents between the police and ultras took place during the course, then on arrival near the Invalides, noted AFP journalists.
Some clashes also broke out at the end of the processions in Nantes (four arrests) and Rennes (16 arrests) where the police used a water cannon to disperse the last demonstrators. But on the whole, the parades took place peacefully.
The unions, meeting in the early evening at the headquarters of FO, must now decide on the follow-up to the movement, and probably announce at least a new day of mobilization.
While taking into account the drop in the number of strikers in several public and private sectors. Thus at the SNCF, 36.5% of railway workers stopped work on Tuesday, against 46.3% on the 19th from union sources.
Same decline in National Education, where the ministry counted at midday a quarter of strikers in primary and secondary schools, while the FSU announced 55% of college and high school teachers on strike.
Fewer strikers also at EDF (40.3% against 44.5% on the 19th, according to management), which did not prevent nightly load drops in power plants, without however causing cuts.
Exception in this setting, the refineries and oil depots of TotalEnergies again oscillated between 75% and 100% of strikers according to the CGT, which has already filed a notice for next week and does not exclude “a shutdown of the installations”.
Caught between the determination of the street and the virulence of the opposition in the National Assembly, where the project has been debated since Monday in committee, the government has hardened its tone since this weekend, at the risk of being accused by the left, like Fabien Roussel (PCF), “to fracture hard” the country.
Elisabeth Borne assured Tuesday before the Macronist deputies that “the majority will be united” on this reform, after having affirmed on Sunday that the decline in the age was “no longer negotiable”, even if measures in favor of women, more impacted than men, are considered.
Withdrawn on this file, Emmanuel Macron, who is partly playing his five-year term on this reform, deemed it “indispensable” on Monday.
“Mr. Macron is certain to lose,” assured Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) in Marseille, believing that France was “going through a historic day”.
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01/31/2023 19:22:50 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP