After the wide protest on January 19, the unions launched a new pulse against Macron demanding the withdrawal of both the delay in the minimum retirement age, from the current 62 years to 64, and the advancement to 2027 of the extension of the contribution period , from 42 to 43 years.
France lived this Tuesday the second massive protest of this month of January against the reform of the pensions of the Government of Emanuel Macron, in a day in which the railway, oil and educational sectors carried out important strikes.
“The world of work says it loud and clear, in the biggest protest in 25 years, it does not want an increase in the minimum retirement age,” Laurent Berger, leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), the first union in the country.
At the head of the Parisian demonstration along with other union leaders, including Philippe Martínez, from the combative General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the organizers claimed 500,000 participants, compared to the 400,000 calculated twelve days ago.
The one in Paris was the largest among the 250 protests called throughout France, followed by the one in Marseille.
There the Prefecture estimated 40,000 demonstrators, still more than on January 19, when the first of a series of mobilizations against the pension reform took place.
In the capital, the protest ended with some clashes with the forces of order, which resulted in 30 arrests.
Faced with the firmness of the Government, the unions jointly called for two new days of general strike and demonstrations, on the 7th and 11th of February.
Protests in France against the pension reform
The goal of the unions is, as in 1995 during the presidency of the conservative Jacques Chirac, to ensure that social pressure is such that it prevents the implementation of a pension reform.
Unions and Executive got involved in the traditional battle for monitoring data.
The police estimated 1,272,000 demonstrators throughout the country, slightly more than the 1,100,000 who did so, according to their data, twelve days ago, while the unions claimed 2.5 million, half a million more than in the last call.
Pending the final data, 19.4% of Central Administration officials had supported the strike, compared to 28% on January 19, according to the Government.
However, there were services that were especially affected, such as oil, rail, air and education, according to figures from the unions.
Nearly a third of the employees of the trains managed by the state-owned SNCF supported the strike -compared to 46.3% on January 19-, which caused only two regional trains of 10 to circulate and between 25 and 30% of high speed ones.
As expected, the TotalEnergies refinery and fuel depot sector mobilized en masse, according to the CGT union.
Four refineries had at least 75% of their personnel on strike.
“We ask the French for an effort”
In the routine parliamentary session to control the Government, the pension reform was one of the main issues.
The Labor Minister, the former socialist Olivier Dussopt, defended the reform in the face of questions from the radical left and the extreme right.
“We ask the French to make an effort so that the current distribution system can be maintained,” said Dussopt, who justified it by using the aging of the population.
It has gone from three contributors for a retiree in the 1970s, to 1.7 contributors today.
The French Executive has also defended the reform of the pension system to be in line with the EU, since France is one of the countries in which the minimum retirement age is lower (62).
An argument rejected by union leaders.
“When we have worked all our lives, the desire is to be able to live on the pension, and for a longer time. That is the message of the street in France”, launched Martínez.