French President Emmanuel Macron has declared the pension crisis closed. France, no. This Thursday, in his second visit to reconcile with the country after promulgating this controversial law last weekend, he was again booed and rebuked by groups of protesters, while new protests were held in Paris and unionists from the railway sector blocked the Gare de Lyon and improvised events in La Defense, the financial district.
“Eggs and pans are for cooking,” said the president, provocative, as soon as he arrived in the Hérault department, in the south of the country, where he was going to deliver a speech on education. In the small town of Ganges, where the authorities were waiting for him, groups of protesters also received him hostilely, with shouts and pans. The forces of order had to intervene to prevent some people wearing CGT union vests from approaching him.
On Wednesday he went to Alsace to talk about industrialization and he was also booed and this union cut off the electricity in the factory he was going to visit. This type of boycott, especially with a saucepan, has been repeated for days. Macron said that “it is normal for anger to be expressed”, but he has warned that this will not prevent him from “continuing to travel through France”. He has also said that he assumes his decision to approve this controversial reform that has marked the first year of his second term and has plummeted his popularity.
In the school that he has visited (and where there has also been a power cut) he has announced an increase between 100 and 230 euros in the teachers’ salary, but the street no longer listens to the proposals. The anger increased when the reform was approved by decree, more than a month ago, and has not ceased despite the fact that last Friday the Constitutional Council validated the reform and Macron promulgated it on Saturday, at dawn.
On Tuesday, in a televised speech to try to close this chapter, he said he understood the anger of the French and gave himself 100 days to calm things down and reset. The first days of this period of “national reconciliation” are not being exactly calm. The protest against the reform enters a new stage: it is no longer against the pension law, but directly against Macron. Despite the fact that it has been promulgated, the streets are not resigned.
In the Defense district, the business district, hundreds of protesters entered by surprise this morning the headquarters of the Euronext company, which manages the Stock Exchange, and the railway unions organized a “railroad rage Thursday” to warm up the engines of facing the demonstrations on May 1, coinciding with Labor Day. That day a large mobilization is expected against this law, which raises the retirement age to 64 and will come into force in September.
The union opposition to the reform will be led from now on and for the first time by women, because yesterday Laurent Berger, leader of the CFDT union, the most moderate and representative, said that he would retire in June. He will replace his number two in front: Marylise Leon. It coincides that the other most important union, the CGT, the most combative, also replaced the historic leader, Philippe Martínez, a few weeks ago to give up the position to another woman: Sophie Binet.
Thanks to the union of the unions, the mobilization against this reform has been so massive and noisy. It has been three months, with 12 days of strikes and demonstrations. Binet has asked trade unionists from all over Europe to come to Paris for the strike on May 1st. This day is presented as a great protest, no longer against the pension reform, but against President Macron, whom the French accuse of having opened the biggest democratic crisis of the Fifth Republic, for having approved the pension reform by force. pensions. This law was approved following a democratic process but without popular or parliamentary support.
The opponents of the reform still have one last trick left, although unlikely, since on May 3 the Constitutional Council will decide whether to accept the referendum proposal presented by the left to establish the retirement age at 62 years. Although the wise council accepts it, it is a complex process that has never been able to come to fruition.
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