Further increase the meters to force the government to backtrack on the pension reform. After a first day of mobilization on January 19, one of the most important in the last 30 years, the unions and the left want to exceed one million French people on the streets and intend to take advantage of the lessons of previous strikes.
• Keep unions together
For the first time since 2010, the unions unite against the executive. The left has also joined forces against retirement at 64. Something to remember the images of 1995 when, during the first demonstration against the end of the special regimes, the heads of FO and the CGT shook hands and marched together for the first time since 1947.
“We almost have a handshake at 8 and the CFDT doesn’t suggest any areas of weakness. It is a very strong signal”, assures the communist deputy Sébastien Jumel to BFMTV.com.
If the unions have less influence than in the past, they retain the ability to shut down entire sectors of the economy, such as refineries and transportation. The CGT thus counted up to 100% of the strikers in the oil depots on January 26.
“The mobilizations in the street are good. But what matters above all is the strike with paralysis in the country that could put Emmanuel Macron in great trouble. And that, the unions always know how to do, especially when everyone agrees, ”he says. Jean-Marie Pernot, political scientist and trade union specialist.
• Mobilize new sectors and young people
If several sectors of the French economy had already joined the demonstration on January 19, new actors, hitherto little mobilized, are entering the dance such as the aviation sector. In 1995, the movement changed during the second day of the mobilization, when the RATP joined the protests.
“It is a very powerful signal because when you block Orly you impact both the senior executives who have business trips and the delivery of medicines”, the deputy for La France wants to believe, hints Hadrien Clouet.
With one hope for some on the left: that artisans who often started work early and therefore particularly concerned about the lowering of the starting age, would join the protests. Butchers and bakers have mobilized in force in recent weeks after their bills have skyrocketed.
Getting young people on the street is also a strong hope of massifying the movement.
“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.
For the moment, the mobilization organized by youth associations and the LFI on January 21 has only gathered 14,000 participants according to the count of the independent firm Occurence and 150,000 according to the organizers.
• Convey a discourse that goes beyond the issue of pensions
In order to register the movement in the long term and massify it, many are those on the left who think slogans that go beyond the question of the decline of the starting era.
“We feel that the issue goes much further than working longer. We are on the issue of the distribution of wealth in our country, of the feeling that we are always flirting with the same people at a time when people don’t care.” it matters to go out.” more financially. We have to make people feel that we are fighting for that”, analyzes the communist deputy Sébastien Jumel.
On the left-wing benches, many consider that the young people who participated in the processions on January 19 with broader slogans such as the end of Parcoursup, which recently opened its platform, student precariousness or even global warming, have already paved the way.
“Students say to themselves: ‘OK, they want us to work more with polluted air, 3 degrees more, all with empty pockets.’ We can clearly see that projecting ourselves towards a desirable future goes far beyond the question of work”, he seeks to underline the rebel Louis Boyard.
• Trust in government mistakes
Following a communication sought by Emmanuel Macron and Élisabeth Borne, the executive seems to have stumbled upon the rug. While the executive has consistently insisted on the “justice” of the reform, Franck Riester, Minister for Relations with Parliament, admitted that women would be “a bit affected” by lowering the retirement age.
The prime minister may have denounced a “bogus trial”, barely convinced. The proof in figures: 72% of the French reject the pension reform project, according to a poll by Elabe for BFMTV. The statistic represents a jump of six points from the measurement taken a week ago… and 13 points from the indicator established two weeks earlier.
“We have a government that says that the reform is not fair. We are not in a communication error but in the truth. And the more the debate progresses on the sets, in the Assembly, the more we will see the reality of this bill” observes Fabrice Angei, head of labor affairs at the CGT.
Who adds: “Franck Riester, this time, is mobilizing women. But a clumsiness of the Minister of National Education can anger teachers even more, a dumpling by François Braun in Health with caregivers too. All this pushes new people to go out on the streets”. “.
In the ranks of the unions, two phrases of Alain Juppé who had set fire to gunpowder in 1995 remained in the memory. “If two million people take to the streets, my government will not resist,” he had launched first before saying “directly on his boots” before the scale of future mobilizations.
“We feel that many factors can amplify mobilization. But the one we have in our hands and that depends only on us is communication. Let’s listen and especially not the top of the class ”, urges a Macronie executive.
“We knew that this reform would be difficult,” the Minister of Labor tried to clarify on our antenna this Friday.
Source: BFM TV
