Demonstrations are planned everywhere in France on Thursday, at the call of the unions and youth organizations CGT, FSU and Solidaires, to demand salary increases and give a warning shot on pensions, when the executive specifies his method of reform. For this first day of interprofessional mobilization since the beginning of the school year, at least 200 meeting places are planned throughout France, according to Céline Verzeletti, CGT confederal secretary.
In Paris, the procession will depart at 2:00 p.m. from Place Denfert-Rochereau, in the direction of the Bastille. A police source expects 3 to 6,000 people in the capital. They were in comparison 3,200 on March 17 and 8,800 on January 27, according to the Government. Among the participants, union representatives but also elected officials, the left-wing parties Nupes and NPA who supported this day of mobilization, as well as a group of associations.
Government announcement of a new round of consultations
The general secretary of the second French union, the CGT, Philippe Martínez, said on Tuesday that he expects a mobilization “much higher than that of January and March,” noting that there were “calls for strikes in many professions.”
Three of the four unions, including the CFDT-Cheminots, have called a strike at SNCF. Interruptions are expected on the TER, Transilien en Ile-de-France, Intercités and Ouigo lines, but the TGV Inoui will operate almost normally. On the side of the RATP, where only the CGT calls for a strike, the mobilization will be moderate with interruptions in buses, trams and RER B, but not in the metro or RER A.
To the initial slogan of salary increases, pensions, scholarships and social minimums in the face of unprecedented inflation (+5.9% in August), the pension file was added. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced on Thursday that the government would open a new round of consultations with a view to adopting a bill “before winter”, which would allow the entry into force of a reform in the summer of 2023, which provides for the ” gradual postponement of the retirement age by four months per year, culminating in 65 years in 2031″.
A great march of leftist parties on October 16
The mobilization day on Thursday will be without the CFDT, which had indicated in early September that it would not participate. “It is company by company, branch by branch that we must act”, declared its general secretary Laurent Berger. FO, which had been associated with most of the demonstrations organized by the CGT in recent months, this time decided to stay out of it. Ten departmental FO unions, however, call for demonstrations, according to Fabrice Lerestif, of the UD35.
The CGT leader has no doubt, however, that all unions are coming together to fight against the pension reform project, as they did with unemployment insurance. “All unions in France are against working until you are 64 or 65 years old,” Philippe Martinez told France 2 on Thursday.
All the national trade union organizations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFTC, CFE-CGC, FSU, Solidaires and Unsa) will meet at the Unsa headquarters on October 3rd. “There could be an announcement of a demonstration” at the end of this meeting, according to Ms. Verzeletti. The left-wing parties, for their part, plan to organize a “great march against the high cost of living and climate inaction” on October 16, without the support, for a foreseen time, of the CGT.
Source: BFM TV
