Disappointed by the decision of the Constitutional Council, the inter-union assures Friday that the fight against the pension reform is “not finished” and asks the President of the Republic not to promulgate the law, calling to make May 1 a ” popular and historic tidal wave”.
“Retirements: it’s not over,” reacted the eight main French unions and five organizations in a press release.
While the Constitutional Council has censored “six articles of the law”, the text is “now even more unbalanced”, she laments. She therefore asks Emmanuel Macron “not to promulgate the law, the only way to calm the anger that is expressed in the country”.
“Mr. President of the Republic, do not promulgate this law this weekend,” insisted the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger on TF1 Friday evening.
The intersyndicale also asks Parliament to deliberate again, as provided for in Article 10 of the Constitution, “a choice of wisdom and appeasement”, and hopes that the Constitutional Council will validate the second draft of the Shared Initiative Referendum (RIP) filed by the left, the first having been invalidated.
Invited by the President of the Republic to meet him at the Elysée Palace on Tuesday, the trade unions affirm that they “will not enter (…) into a political agenda which would require an emergency meeting and whose order of the day would not be the withdrawal of the reform”, and let it be known that they “decide by May 1 not to accept meetings with the executive”.
As it had already mentioned on Thursday, during the twelfth day of mobilization against the reform, the inter-union calls on employees to make Monday May 1 an “exceptional and popular day of mobilization against the pension reform and for social justice. “.
“All the trade unions are giving all French people a date on May 1 for a popular and historic tidal wave”, declared the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, in the midst of the demonstrators gathered on the square. of the Hôtel-de-Ville in Paris.
His counterpart from Force Ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot, considered that the decision of the Constitutional Council does not “shake up the timetable of the inter-union” which “will continue to demand withdrawal by mobilization and by a united inter-union”.
In the early evening, more than 4,000 people gathered on the forecourt of the Hôtel-de-Ville located not far from the Constitutional Council, some of whom were determined to join rue de Montpensier despite a deterrent police device. They greeted the decision of the Constitutional Council with boos.
The former figure of the Yellow Vests Jérôme Rodrigues called for “adopting the Yellow Vests scheme” and “getting out of the institutional shackles”.
Gatherings took place in many other cities in France, with wild processions sometimes interspersed with incidents.
Earlier in the week, the trade unions had warned against the risks of radicalization of the social movement, in the event that the postponement of the age would be validated, but not the RIP, a possible democratic outlet.
But mobilization could now take other forms. “Big days of action” like the twelve who chanted the social movement “it will become complicated”, conceded the secretary general of the FSU, Benoît Teste. “We are going to have a mobilization of less intensity”, with “mobilizations more spaced out”, he predicted. Friday evening, Sophie Binet mentioned the organization of “a lot of actions” for Thursday.
The new period that is opening risks testing the solidity of the intersyndicale, with reformist unions perhaps more inclined to leave the social movement and resume dialogue with the government, even after a period of “decency”.
“I have always said that we will not want to end up with 200,000 people in the streets when we have made a historic but also ultra-dignified mobilization”, Laurent Berger said on Thursday, at the start of the Paris demonstration.
The opportunity for him to pay tribute again to the inter-union, to “this ability despite our differences to make a social movement that will mark the social history of this country”.
The inter-union has planned to meet Monday evening at the headquarters of FO.
04/14/2023 20:40:56 – Paris (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
