I don’t really consider it while crossing my fingers. Faced with the call to demonstrate against the pension reform launched by various youth organizations, the macronie does not foresee a massive mobilization in high schools and faculties. But some warn of the risk of blockades in schools.
“I don’t think young people fall into the trap of the discourse of political parties,” the Renaissance deputy Guillaume Karasbian, president of the Assembly’s economic affairs committee, judges with BFMTV.com.
Slogans that go beyond the question of pensions
Same story from Fadila Khattabi, who heads the social affairs commission at the Palais Bourbon. “Pension reform, they don’t talk to me about it, neither among the young nor among the less young. Rather, they question me about inflation,” says the deputy for Côte-d’Or.
Already in December, student unions such as UNEF, Fidl and even MNF were concerned about the extension of the retirement age. “Youth, already strongly affected by precariousness, would be strongly impacted by this project,” they later asserted in a press release.
If the youth movements call to join the mobilization of the unions on January 19, it is at the initiative of a march, 2 days later, of which La France insoumise took the lead. With, on that day, a slogan that goes beyond the pension reform but also demands the end of Parcoursup, the post-baccalaureate orientation reform launched in 2018, and solutions against student precariousness.
“We feel that something is going to happen. Youth on the street is in a way Emmanuel Macron’s greatest fear”, advances from BFMTV.com the rebel deputy, Louis Boyard, former leader of the institute’s protest.
“Nothing to do” with the CPE
Youth unions have an example in mind: the First Job Contract (CPE). In January 2006, as soon as this specific employment contract for minors under 26 years of age was announced, millions of people, the majority between 18 and 25 years of age, mobilized to have this bill withdrawn.
Added to these large-scale demonstrations is the blockade of some forty universities. Despite its approval in Parliament, the strikers did not give up and eventually got the bill withdrawn.
“We have a measure that is in no way specific to the youngest. It concerns everyone. We cannot compare everything,” says Ambroise Méjean, president of Youth with Macron.
“I don’t believe in these kinds of scenarios. The CPE was not a campaign promise. We do advertise the color. They always tell us this story but it has nothing to do with it”, judges another ministerial adviser.
“Difficult to bring young people home”
However, the hypothesis of a massive mobilization of young people is not impossible. In 2010, while François Fillon advocated changing the retirement age from 60 to 62, a dozen universities were blocked for several days.
Several high school student protesters were also injured during clashes with police in Haute-Savoie, Calvados and Seine-Saint-Denis, sometimes seriously. However, without bowing to the government.
“It is not easy to get young people out on the street, but when they are there, it is difficult for them to return home. You do not have the question of lower pay like that of employees,” deciphers Raymond Soubie, the former social adviser. Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee.
Before adding: “we may be facing a kind of revolutionary romanticism with rather vague claims. The pension reform will only concern him for a long time”.
“We will have nothing in retirement”
However, 59% of those under 35 years of age believe that the retirement age is already excessive, according to a survey by the Institut Montaigne. What pushes the macronie to lament the lack of “pedagogy”.
“Young people don’t understand the current system,” explains Prisca Thevenot, deputy and spokesperson for the Renaissance group in the National Assembly.
And to cite an impromptu exchange on the subway with a young woman in her twenties who explained to her “without knowing why or for whom she was contributing”. “We will have nothing in retirement,” she added.
A “paradoxical” mobilization
Faced with a reform that some in the ranks of the macronie consider too technical – such as the head of the Modem, François Bayrou, who called this Sunday morning on BFMTV to “work” so that “every citizen has the means to express their opinion” – many advocate efforts at explanation.
“It would still be paradoxical to demonstrate against a reform that seeks to balance our system so that young people themselves can retire later”, replies the elected Renaissance Guillaume Karasbian.
Emmanuel Macron himself called his majority “not to be techno but pedagogical” during a breakfast at the Élysée. How to convince students?
“I think that, on the contrary, we all understood the reform very well. We have all the cards in hand to make it fail,” says Louis Boyard. Echoing this, Elisabeth Borne has already explained that she wants to “continue working to convince”.
Source: BFM TV
