Laurent Berger, the secretary general of the CFDT, ruled on Sunday that the spectacle of the debates in the Assembly on the pension reform was “lamentable”contrasting with the ” dignity “ demonstrations.
“It’s a lamentable spectacle that has nothing to do with the dignity of the street movement”said Mr. Berger, guest of the RTL-Le Figaro-LCI grand jury. “I sometimes had the impression that it was the set of a famous so-called animator, it was so mediocre; it was Cyril Hanouna’s set”he continued.
Laurent Berger, investigation into the key man of the mobilization
In the Assembly, the first week of examination of the text of the pension reform, already stormy, ended in the tumult of a controversy ended in the exclusion for 15 days of an LFI deputy sanctioned for having posed , in a tweet, his foot on a ball bearing the image of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.
“Obstruction is bullshit”
Above all, the examination advances step by step. The unions are demanding that article 7, which bears the age measure, can be the subject of a debate and a vote. But nothing is less certain, while the deputies of the Nupes have tabled thousands of amendments. “Obstruction is not a good solution”commented Mr. Berger. “It’s bullshit”he added.
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Laurent Berger also challenged the official count of protesters against the reform on Saturday. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the demonstrations gathered 963,000 people in France, including 93,000 in Paris.
The CGT has identified 500,000 people in the Parisian procession, and “more than 2.5 million” on a national level. “The Interior figure is reduced because there were more than a million people on the street”estimated Laurent Berger.
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A “France at a standstill”
“We have our own count: 1.8 million people, we have people who count (the demonstrators) in each place of assembly”he argued. “We can play on the numbers but it’s a huge mobilization: never have there been so many people in a mobilization on Saturday”he continued.
Pensions: the CFDT attitude
insisting on “an exceptional moment of mobilization of the world of work”diverse in its social and geographical origins and in its character “extremely peaceful”he ruled that the government could not “stay deaf”. “Today, no response”he regretted.
The inter-union calls for a fifth act on February 16 and raises the specter of a “France at a standstill” March 7, i.e. after the school holidays. “It can be like in Spain where traders symbolically lower the curtain for an hour or two”said Laurent Berger.
For the economist Michaël Zemmour, “we are made to understand the opposite of what is in the pension reform”
