The deputy elected in the Somme, François Ruffin, marched alongside young people against the pension reform this Saturday in Paris. With BFMTV, he judged that the President of the Republic was “irresponsible” and called on him to give up his project.
An idea is the subject of a verbal ping-pong around the mobilization against the government plan to reform pensions: that of “irresponsibility”. As a prelude to the first demonstrations, Emmanuel Macron had thus confided that he did not believe “in the victory of irresponsibility”. On Thursday in Barcelona, he this time portrayed his track record as “fair and responsible”.
Participating, this Saturday in Paris, in the march of young people against this reform project, the rebellious deputy elected in the Somme, François Ruffin, returned the stigma. “I find that we have an irresponsible person at the head of the country,” he said.
“The responsibility would be to withdraw” the text according to François Ruffin
“I find that we have a President of the Republic who is irresponsible,” he said.
And to continue: “After three years of the Covid crisis, we have exhausted French people, after the war in Ukraine, the difficulty of paying their bills, the energy whose price is jumping, the salaries which do not follow, a president of the Republic re-elected without enthusiasm or momentum, with a majority of hiccups in the National Assembly, and which on an extremely narrow basis is carrying out a project which offends society. I find that it is dangerous for the country, the nation.
“I find that we have an irresponsible person at the head of the country. The responsibility – if he had a little wisdom – it would have been not to propose this project. The responsibility today would be to withdraw it”, a- he resumed. François Ruffin invited Emmanuel Macron to a Gaullian gestureadvising him to “sort of say, ‘I got you’.”
“People want to work well, they see the difficulty in which the country finds itself, that it is necessary to rebuild the hospital, the school, the railroad, the electricity but they say: ‘Our work must be recognized’. is the salary, and to retire at an age where you are not yet exhausted, not yet on your knees,” he explained.
“Decency” as a watchword
François Ruffin also underlined what is at the heart of the mobilization according to him: “My watchword is a watchword of decency: the French must be able to live from their work. From their present work, it is salary; of their past work is retirement; of their future work is training.”
The independent firm Occurrence – which counted the number of demonstrators for a media collective including BFMTV – estimated the procession at around 14,000 walkers. Far from the 150,000 claimed by rebellious France. But François Ruffin assured the success of the mobilization, and registered it in the continuity of the success of the day of strike of Thursday: “What began to occur Thursday, it is a thaw of the resignation. people come out.”
François Ruffin makes an appointment on January 31
The deputy hopes to see this dynamic continue during the next day of strike, set for January 31 by the unions: “There, there is energy, desire, and now we have to tell ourselves that we are aiming the 31st. It is the 31st the date, it will be necessary to expand.”
He suggested to opponents of the pension reform project to promote the movement to those around them: “And each person who came on the 19th must find a friend, a cousin, a colleague and say to him ‘Come with me on the 31st’ to win against retirement at 64, to have the right to have a good time with his grandchildren”.
