And if tomorrow the moment of truth arrived for the unions? After a slight decrease in participation on Tuesday compared to January 19 and 31, the inter-union wants to gather a large number of protesters in the streets of the country tomorrow for the fourth day of mobilization. Ahead of the fifth date announced for Thursday, February 16, the election on a Saturday is supposed to allow people who cannot strike during the week to take part in the various processions for a large-scale demonstration.
For the unions, it is therefore a matter of restarting the machine, but this week several voices have already been raised to consider a hardening of the mobilization while the Government does not seem willing to back down on its pension reform project. This is particularly the case of the general secretary of the CGT Philippe Martinez who abounded in this regard before the start of the Paris demonstration on Tuesday. Sud-Rail trade union delegates also expressed themselves in this sense before the inter-union officially mentioned on Wednesday, through a press release, a renewable strike carried out after the holidays. A clue to which the CGT-Cheminots has just subscribed, mentioning the date of Tuesday, March 7 to begin the operation.
The text vote, a turning point
Why such a long term? Due to the context of school holidays, which already partly explains the decrease in mobilization observed on February 7.
“The inter-union has a huge weapon, which is public support,” recalls Xavier Crettiez, associate professor of political science at the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin in the Yvelines. , public support is likely to wane.” The researcher also insists on the need to maintain union unity:
More than the return of the school holidays, the real central date could be the vote on the text that should take place before spring. “The protest in the street echoes a challenge in the National Assembly and in particular the obstruction strategy of the Nupes to slow down the vote on the text, observes Xavier Crettiez. There is a game that operates in parallel between the street and the Assembly and this scissors effect did not exist in 1995, 2016 or 2019″.
A transition to hit actions.
Starting from the premise that the text will surely be voted on subject to the concessions of the majority of the Republican requests, the associate professor of political science believes that the challenge will be complicated then. “The CFDT is a legalist union and is likely to take up arms if the pension reform is approved, he says. As the largest union in France, it would weaken the protest movement if it gave up the fight.”
Therefore, the most virulent unions such as the CGT or the Sud could see it as an opportunity to move definitively to “coup” actions, a temptation reinforced by the economic context in which high inflation accentuates the weight of lost wages when a worker leaves. strike or protest
For the researcher, it is also the hierarchy of the French union organizations that is at stake after this mobilization against the pension reform that seems to have rehabilitated them, at least temporarily: “Which will appear as the union that most embodies the For a long time , the CGT was the first central in France and regrets having been surpassed by the CFDT.
Source: BFM TV
