From Rennes to Marseille, the demonstrators began to march Thursday for the eleventh time against the pension reform while the discussions between unions and government are deadlocked, a week before the decision of the Constitutional Council.
Before the departure of the Parisian procession, the new secretary general of the CGT Sophie Binet castigated a government which “lives in a parallel reality”, accusing it of acting “as if nothing had happened” in the face of “deep anger” against reform. At his side, the number one of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, observed that “the challenge is still as strong” even if the participation figures of the day are “not the most important since the beginning” of the social movement.
The first figures of the processions seemed in fact to attest to a participation far from the records with 3600 people in Orleans, 5500 in Le Havre or 8500 in Rennes, according to the authorities. On March 28, the mobilization had stalled, with according to the Ministry of the Interior 740,000 demonstrators in France, “more than two million” according to the CGT. This time, the authorities expect from police sources between 600 and 800,000 people, including 60 to 90,000 in Paris. 11,500 police and gendarmes are mobilized, while the last processions have been enamelled with tension.
Less marked strikes
The strikes are also less marked, especially at the SNCF, with three out of four TGVs and one out of two TERs and, in Paris, “almost normal” traffic for the metro and the RER.
Blocking actions at the gates of major cities have caused traffic jams, particularly in Lyon and Rennes but also around Brest and Caen. Railway workers also briefly invaded the former headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais in Paris, with smoke bombs and whistles.
On the refinery side, after the announcement of the restart of production at the Esso-ExxonMobil site in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime), its neighbor TotalEnergies in Gonfreville-L’Orcher remains the only one whose production is still stopped.
In education, the ministry has identified less than 8% of striking teachers. Some high schools and universities have been blocked, for example, in Paris, the Sorbonne and Assas. In Rennes, the faculty of law was closed, as were the three campuses of Lyon-2.
The unions want to “keep the flame alive”
But as since January 10 and the presentation of the reform, the biggest blockage is above all to be found between the executive and the unions, whose relations are turning sour. After a meeting that came to an end on Wednesday at Matignon, the head of government said that she did not plan “to move forward without the social partners”. The converse is less true.
“She cannot imagine being Prime Minister of this country if she does not withdraw her reform”, replied Sophie Binet this Thursday morning, from Gournay-sur-Aronde (Oise) where she had come to support the Storengy gas storage strikers. , later denouncing from Paris a “bunkerized” government.
For its part, the entourage of the President of the Republic, traveling in China until Saturday, assumed a project “democratically supported” and rejected the responsibility for the failure of the dialogue on the unions, and in particular the CFDT which n didn’t “wanted to enter into a compromise”. “Stop the provocation, we are not in a ring”, reacted Laurent Berger, adding later that “rather than being sensitive, it would be better to be worried”.
Other battles are to be expected, at least until the decision of the Constitutional Council, which will deliver its verdict on April 14. The inter-union scheduled for the evening at the headquarters of FO should lead to the announcement of a new day of mobilization before this date. It would be “not totally stupid”, slipped Laurent Berger. He hopes the Elders censure “the whole of the law”. Failing this, estimated the number one of the FSU Benoît Teste Thursday, a green light for the procedure of referendum of shared initiative (RIP) on pensions “can allow us to maintain the flame”.
