After Alsace on Wednesday, where he was jeered at by demonstrators on several occasions, Emmanuel Macron went back to the field on Thursday, April 20, with the aim of continuing his enterprise of “appeasement” of the country after the validation of pension reform, which has so far proved difficult. He is expected after 11 a.m. in the Hérault, at the Louise-Michel college in Ganges, to talk about education during a meeting with teachers, students and parents of students.
Will he avoid boos, whistles, as well as the clinking of pans as a welcome, as during his trip to Muttersholtz and Sélestat (Bas-Rhin)? Nothing is less sure. Two hours before his arrival, some 250 demonstrators, forming a hostile welcoming committee and chanting “we are here”, were already waiting for him in front of the town hall of the commune of 4,000 inhabitants.
Hostile welcoming committee
“GARDAREM [let’s keep in Occitan] pensions, democracy, the planet”, affirmed in particular a large banner stretched under a radiant sun, in the middle of demonstrators carrying for the majority of chasubles of the CGT and Unsa unions and CGT or FSU flags. Extended on the balcony of the town hall of the city located in the foothills of the Cévennes, another banner asked for the reopening of the maternity hospital of the city.
While around 9:30 a.m., the demonstrators tried to take the direction of the Louise-Michel college, the latter were blocked by a gendarmerie vehicle and a filtering barrier formed by the police, calling the gendarmes to join them, and trying to ignore them.
Among the demonstrators, some arrived carrying a coffin stamped with the word “democracy”, surrounded by a whole procession of people waving black balloons in sign of mourning.
For the local representative of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Mathieu Guy, the visit of the Head of State is a “provocation”, “which does not answer the question of pensions and comes to walk in the countryside to talk something else “. “Flash visit” and “com strategy”, also denounced the deputy La France insoumise (LFI) of the constituency, Sébastien Rome.
Campaign promises partly decried
For this trip devoted to preparing for the next school year, the Head of State will be accompanied by the Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye and the Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance, Patricia Mirallès. It must be an opportunity for the president to address “three axes” to “continue the transformation of public schools”, according to the Elysée.
During his televised address on Monday evening, Mr. Macron had promised that the school would change “visibly” from September, with “better paid” teachers, “more supported” students in French and mathematics in particular, and a “systematic replacement of absent teachers”.
The ambition is clear, insists the Elysée: “Change our school, to” reconnect with the ambition to be one of the best in Europe. This could result, according to several macronist sources, in announcements on the remuneration of teachers, expected for several weeks by the educational community.
As early as the presidential campaign, Mr. Macron had put forward two avenues to respond to the problem of the attractiveness of the profession: on the one hand an “unconditional” increase of 10% in salaries, and on the other, a linked increase, in return, to new missions for teachers, called “pact”.
The idea was greeted with circumspection on the ground, leading all the trade unions to slam the door of negotiations in March on the second part of the proposals, the latter refusing the principle of “working more to earn more”.
It is “a tool disguised as a revaluation”, which “exploits the fact that colleagues are not paid enough”, told Agence France-Presse Antoine Tardy, academic co-secretary of the National Syndicate of Secondary School Education. Unitary Trade Union Federation (SNES-FSU) of Versailles, before Thursday’s trip. The government will give a “bone to gnaw at parents of students so that they believe that their child will be followed”, reacted Benoît Connétable, mathematics teacher at Carnot high school and Force Ouvrière (FO) secretary for high schools and colleges. Parisians.
“Prefer a heckled president to a stashed president”
This second trip since the promulgation of the pension reform overnight from Friday to Saturday, after its validation by the Constitutional Council, should allow the Head of State to continue his field work, within the framework of the “hundred days” that he has set for himself and his government to get the country out of social crisis.
Following Wednesday’s episode, the latter repeated his desire to stay the course and move the country forward, arguing: “You have to hear the anger, I’m not deaf to this one”, but “it doesn’t bother me. won’t prevent me from continuing to move”. “The mission of a President of the Republic is neither to be liked nor not to be liked, it is to try to do good for his country and to act,” he added.
An argument defended by the government, like the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts Gabriel Attal who declared Thursday morning “preferring a heckled president to a stashed president”, on the sidelines of a press conference in Bercy on public finances. “Whether the people are angry or not, you always have to meet them,” added Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, during the same speech.
In parallel with the trip of the Head of State to Ganges, and pending the great mobilization to which the unions are calling for May 1, sectors remain mobilized elsewhere on Thursday. The four representative unions of the SNCF called in particular for a “day of expression of railway anger”, presented as a “preparation stage” on May 1st. With almost normal TGV traffic and 4 TER out of 5 on average, disruptions should however be limited.
