A symbol of rising tensions? Although this Thursday was marked by a new day of mobilization against the pension reform, the slogans addressed directly to Emmanuel Macron have multiplied. The high school students in the Parisian demonstration carried, for example, a poster that illustrates a slogan that has been heard in recent days in the spontaneous mobilizations of the night: “Louis XVI, we behead him, Macron we can start again.”
In the midst of a very dense crowd, several banners also display the color: that of a deep hatred of the president. Sylvère, 32, a schoolteacher in the Parisian suburbs, holds up a cardboard “Macron the sadist.” The same atmosphere for Michaela, who writes “we will all live better when Macron is dead, and our pensions too”.
A 49.3 that changes the’atmosphere
The first mobilizations against the reform, however, revolved more around slogans addressed to Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor or even Élisabeth Borne with a phrase that had flourished on many banners: “Borne out”.
But, since 49.3 and a motion of censure rejected by a narrow margin, we find, as during the yellow vests, models burned in the’effigy of’Emmanuel Macron in Paris or even the president’s head brandished at the end of a wooden handle in Châteauroux. What to see there as a turning point in the mobilization more than 2 months after the first days of the strike?
“The attacks ad hominem they are a great classic of demonstrations and when we attack a political figure, we attack his institutional dimension, therefore the president, whoever he is, but also the physical person, here Emmanuel Macron”, relativizes Élodie Mielczareck, BFMTV communication specialist. com.
Although he judged, however, that the president’s interview on Wednesday could have changed the atmosphere in the ranks of the protesters. “You had amalgamations in your statements that delegitimize any social movement. It is very difficult to listen when you sincerely believe that the pension reform is unfair”, the semiotician also advances.
An interview that goes wrong in the ranks of the strikers
Relatively discreet about the pension reform in recent weeks, Emmanuel Macron has shown his confidence on the 1:00 p.m. news. The president, whose reform does not convince the unions, the opposition, or the French from poll to poll, said he was “prepared to assume unpopularity.” Before explaining, he does not accept “neither the rebels nor the factions in the Republic.”
“I didn’t know these words, I looked them up in the dictionary. And then I saw that it meant that the president was accusing me of fomenting violent riots, ”jokes Lola, CPE in a school, in the Parisian procession.
His sign reads “Macron, the officials will come to get you.” “I manifest myself regularly, I lose days of salary. Is the president summing up my struggle like this? It is unbearable ”, the official also advances.
A “disconnected, considered derogatory” president
Asked about the government’s difficulties in defending the reform, the head of state assured that he did not “live with regret” and said he was “convinced” that the French “will be able to unite for the future of the country.”
“We found elements typical of the yellow vests with the feeling of a disconnected president, considered derogatory. And in a way, the Covid had anesthetized the anger but not the distrust that returns with force with the pension reform ”, deciphers Arnaud Benedetti, associate professor at Paris-1.
In the ranks of the macronie, where however concern about the continuation of the reforms is beginning to arise, we do not believe in a return of the French to roundabouts.
“The movement has no connection. He does not come from rural areas and the far left did not try to control him,” says Renaissance MP Hadrien Ghomi.
Yo’hope of’shortness of breath for most
The same story on the side of Prisca Thevenot, spokesperson for the group in the National Assembly.
“The issue is not for or against Emmanuel Macron as some say, but for or against the reform. The president was democratically elected, no one can take it away from him”, judges the parliamentarian from Hauts-de-Seine.
Many in the ranks of the presidential majority apply the strategy of going back and betting on the’brevity of movement With one hope: that the unions leave the protest once the reform is promulgated and that the most dispersed and violent mobilizations end up losing the support of the French. Calculus has it all.’a bet: more than 6 out of 10 Frenchmen support the extension of the strike movement according to a poll by Elabe for BFMTV.
Source: BFM TV
