Meeting between French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and central unions over the controversial pension reform ended in a “failure” yesterday, with workers called to the streets today for an 11th day of protest against raising the retirement age from 62 . up to 64 years. “It is clearly a failure if the prime minister does not even allow us to enter into this discussion,” said Cyril Chabanier, president of France’s Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC), speaking on behalf of the country’s eight main trade unions after the meeting of less than an hour.
“We told the Prime Minister again that the only democratic way out would be to withdraw the text. The Prime Minister replied that she wanted to keep the text, a serious decision”Chabanier added. For her part, Sophie Binet, secretary general of the General Labor Federation (CGT), defended the “continuation of the mobilization to the end, until the government realizes that there is no other way out than the withdrawal of the reform”, she indicated . “We can’t move on to anything else until this reform is withdrawn,” he said.
The pension reform, President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise, will go ahead despite not being approved by the National Assembly, with Borne resorting to the so-called constitutional “atomic bomb” – Article 49.3 – on March 16 to avoid a parliamentary majority. Borne survived two censure motions, but the reform, already contested, became more controversial.
The Constitutional Council will vote on April 14 on the changes, which go beyond raising the retirement age and which the president considers essential to ensure the viability of the system. It is the last step before Macron can announce the text, and the Élysée indicated that the president would also have to meet the unions for that.
“After two months of an exemplary and unprecedented social movement in 50 years, strongly supported by the population, and a chaotic parliamentary trajectory, the lack of response from the executive leads to a situation of tension in the country that causes us great concern” , the central unions said in the call for the 11th day of protest.
After the violence of the 9th day of protests (March 23), when 149 police officers were injured following the demonstrations which, according to the unions, involved 3.5 million people across the country (the government spoke of just over a million), the 10th day of contest (March 28) turned out to be calmer. The Interior Ministry had dispatched 13,000 police officers to the streets, but the number of demonstrators was smaller: 740,000 according to official figures, 1.5 million according to trade unions. 11,500 police officers were mobilized for the 11th day of protest.
In addition to the protests, there will be a strike, which should again cause problems in the transport sector, namely on trains across the country and at the airports of Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes. Schools should also be affected, as well as the garbage collection service in Paris. This sector, which has been at a standstill for three weeks and leaves thousands of tons of waste in the streets of the capital, will go on indefinite strike again from April 13.
Source: DN
