Strikers, a France that the unions expect “stopped” and a confrontation that the centrals want to install over time. While territorial intelligence notes evoke 1.1 to 1.4 million people on the street this Tuesday against retirement at 64, the day has something to make the government sweat cold.
“The magnitude of Tuesday’s strike will give propelling force for the future,” rebel MP Hadrien Clouet told BFMTV.com.
“We played to the maximum”
Several strategic sectors have called to renew their strike every day, such as the RATP and the SNCF. In refineries, the possibility of a renewal raises the risk of fuel shortages and the inability to get tankers out.
Until now, the unions had not opted for this mode of action to maintain the support of the French, massively opposed to the reform, from ballot box to ballot box.
“We are risking everything, it is clear and clear why Emmanuel Macron is not moving. It is necessary at all costs that the day of the mobilization trigger things backwards. Otherwise, we’ll go against the wall”, sums up another CFDT trade unionist.
“A success” that does not “mean that the Government is going to let go”
At the moment, the unions believe in it, especially since it is not the centers at the national level that are going to give their consent, but each federation, very close to the ground, which may want to increase speed.
“Obviously, the day will be a success for the unions. It is not possible in any other way when you have such a refusal from the population. But that does not mean that the government will let it go”, qualifies Bernard Vivier, director of the Superior School. Institute of Labor and connoisseur of union negotiations.
Before adding: “the government is not in a position of dialogue but of maintenance at all costs.”
Macron directly in his boots
If the executive has given the senatorial right promises of goodwill that it needs at all costs for its text to be voted on and to be able to claim a certain parliamentary legitimacy -after the absence of a vote in the National Assembly-, the dialogue is totally broken with the unions .
In question: the words of Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of February calling for the “spirit of responsibility” of the unions that greatly upset the CGT and the CFDT.
The exchanges do not seem much more fruitful with the French. During the agricultural fair, the president was repeatedly questioned about the reform. He defended it tooth and nail, believing there was “only one solution: work more.”
“As determined as 15 ministers”
It is not enough to discourage the left, which still believes that it is possible to roll back the government. He remembers the strikes of 1995 that blocked the reform of the special regimes and the first labor contract of 2006 that was never applied despite its promulgation.
“Prime ministers Alain Juppé and Dominique de Villepin were just as determined. That did not stop them from finally backing down,” observes parliamentarian Benjamin Lucas (Génération.s).
However, the political context is very different. In these two cases, the governments were very divided internally on the advisability of these reforms and they abandoned their project, pressured by Jacques Chirac, sensitive to the street.
Enough to turn the mobilization into a psychological confrontation. “We want to show that the French are even more determined than 15 people in the Council of Ministers”, summarizes the environmental deputy Marie Pochon.
“We’ll wait for it to happen”
In the executive field, we are currently going back, with a bill approved at the end of March.
“We grit our teeth and if the conflict hardens, it hardens, that’s it. We will wait for it to pass”, deciphers a chosen Renaissance.
The government expects to have reached the end of parliamentary discussions in the coming weeks, with probably 49.3 at the end of the race in the National Assembly.
Source: BFM TV
