On Tuesday, between 1.2 and 2.8 million French people defied the sidewalks to express their opposition to the pension reform that the Emmanuel Macron government wants, an increase in participation compared to the first day of the strike on January 19. .
Although two new days of mobilization have already been announced, on February 7 and 11, the European press is closely watching this social uproar that is hitting France. And who could even be emulated, if the British press is to be believed.
British mime?
HE United Kingdom, a country hitherto unaccustomed to social movements, has been shaken for several months by major strikes. On Wednesday, thousands of teachers took to the streets of London, joining angry nurses and railway workers. The English, who until then liked to gently mock their French neighbors for their propensity to demonstrate, now call to imitate them.
“It is time to challenge the British government as the French would,” headlines the Scottish newspaper. The National.
“These French, who are taking to the streets for their pensions, are not doing it just because of this problem, but because of what they believe is a greater threat to social justice. This is part of a broader battle against a perceived system economy unfair,” editorialist David Pratt writes in the newspaper’s columns.
Call on the Scots to mobilize en masse against Rishi Sunak’s government in London.
Magazine The Economist he even dedicated an episode of his podcast “La inteligencia” to the French protests. “The retirement age affects a central part of the French national identity,” explains Sophie Pedder, Paris correspondent for the press title.
A “lunar” reform in Italy
In Italywhere attention is currently focused on a scandal related to the conditions of detention of detainees, the comments are less numerous than on the entire Channel. the Republic however, he was surprised by the extent of the mobilization, while the retirement age is set at 67 in our Italian neighbours. The newspaper even describes as “polka dots” the proposals of certain candidates during the last French presidential elections, who proposed lowering the starting age to 60 years.
In the newspaper columns Belgian The night, we are talking about a reform “barely presented, already shouted”, when in Spain, The country Emmanuel Macron warns of a “long-lasting divorce with a majority of French people if he maintains the plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.”
The Spanish newspaper even draws a parallel with another French social movement: “The demonstrations were important in medium-sized and small towns, one of the focal points of the demonstrations, as they were during the yellow vest revolt in 2018.”
“Disoriented” French
Finally, in Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung He points out in recent days the “nervousness” of the Government, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne having indicated that the starting age of 64 years was “non-negotiable”. “Even in a strike-friendly France, it is unusual for public administrations to join a strike en bloc,” the newspaper also noted, in relation to the closure of several town halls on Tuesday.
However, it is from Switzerland that the most detailed analysis of the movement currently shaking France comes. In a “comment” posted on the newspaper’s website ClickFrance-based journalist Richard Werly believes the protests are “much more than a pension riot.”
The article evokes the “confused” French, in a country “in the process of over-indebtedness”. Before warning the government of Emmanuel Macron: “Letting it (the mobilization movement, editor’s note) prosper, betting on its exhaustion, is the best way to let yourself be overwhelmed tomorrow at the polls by a revolution.”
Source: BFM TV
