A few days before the first strike against retirement at 64, the presidential majority hardly believes in major blockages in high schools or universities. “When young people are on the streets, it’s difficult to get them to come home,” however, warns Nicolas Sarkozy’s former pensions adviser.
Not really considering it while crossing your fingers. Faced with the call to demonstrate against the pension reform launched by several youth organizations, macronie does not envisage a massive mobilization in high schools and faculties. But some warn of the risk of blockages in schools.
“I do not think that young people fall into the trap of the speech of political parties”, judge with BFMTV.com the deputy Renaissance Guillaume Karasbian, president of the commission of economic affairs at the Assembly.
Slogans that go beyond the question of pensions
Same story on the side of Fadila Khattabi, who heads the social affairs commission at the Palais Bourbon. “Pension reform, they don’t talk to me about it, neither among the young nor among the less young. They rather question me about inflation”, assures the MP for Côte-d’Or.
As early as December, student unions such as UNEF, Fidl and even MNF were concerned about the extension of the retirement age. “The youth, already strongly affected by precariousness, would be strongly impacted by this project”, they then assure in a press release.
If the youth movements call to join the mobilization of the unions of January 19, they are at the initiative of a march, 2 days later, of which La France insoumise took the lead. With, that day, a watchword that goes beyond pension reform but also demands the end of Parcoursup, the orientation reform after the baccalaureate put in place in 2018 – and solutions against student precariousness.
“We feel that something is going to happen. Youth in the street is in a way Emmanuel Macron’s greatest fear”, advances the rebellious deputy, Louis Boyard, ex-leader of the high school protest, from BFMTV.com.
“Nothing to do” with the CPE
Youth unions have an example in mind: that of the First Job Contract (CPE). In January 2006, as soon as this employment contract specific to those under 26 was announced, millions of people, most of whom were between 18 and 25, mobilized to have this bill withdrawn.
To these large-scale demonstrations, is added the blocking of about forty universities. Despite its adoption in Parliament, the strikers did not give up and finally obtained the withdrawal of the bill.
“We have a measure which is in no way specific to the youngest. It will concern everyone. We cannot compare everything”, however assures Ambroise Méjean, the president of the Young people with Macron.
“I don’t believe in this kind of scenario. The CPE was not a campaign promise. We did announce the color. We are always told this story but it has nothing to do with it”, judges another ministerial adviser.
“Difficult to bring young people home”
The hypothesis of a massive mobilization of young people is not impossible, however. In 2010, while François Fillon defended the shift in the retirement age from 60 to 62, a dozen universities were blocked for several days.
Several high school student demonstrators were also injured during scuffles with the police in Haute-Savoie, Calvados and Seine-Saint-Denis, sometimes seriously. Without, however, bending the government.
“It’s not easy to get young people onto the streets, but when they are there, it’s difficult to get them to come home. You don’t have the question of less pay like for employees” , decrypts Raymond Soubie, the former social adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée.
Before adding: “we can be dealing with a kind of revolutionary romanticism with rather vague claims. The pension reform will only concern it in a very long time”.
“We will have nothing in retirement”
However, 59% of those under 35 believe that the retirement age is already excessive, according to a Institut Montaigne survey. What push the macronie to regret a lack of “pedagogy”.
“Young people do not understand the current system”, explains Prisca Thevenot, MP and spokesperson for the Renaissance group in the National Assembly.
And to quote an impromptu exchange in the metro with a young woman in her twenties who explained to him “not knowing why or for whom she was contributing”. “We will have nothing at retirement,” she added.
A “paradoxical” mobilization
Faced with a reform that some in the ranks of the macronie consider too technical – like the boss of the Modem, François Bayrou, who called this Sunday morning on BFMTV “to work” so “that each citizen has the means to make an opinion” – many plead for efforts at explanation.
“It would still be paradoxical to demonstrate against a reform which aims to balance our system so that young people themselves can have a retirement later”, still retorts the elected Renaissance Guillaume Karasbian.
Emmanuel Macron himself called on his majority to “not be techno but pedagogical” during a breakfast at the Élysée. How to convince students?
“Me, I believe that on the contrary, we all understood the reform very well. We have all the cards in hand to make it fail”, advances Louis Boyard. Echoing this, Elisabeth Borne has already explained that she wants to “continue to work to convince”.
