On the Place de l’Opéra, the first demonstrators eat their sandwiches, their hands wrapped in their sleeves to escape the bites of the wind, freezing despite the winter sun. In the air, the smoke from the grilled food mixes with that of the smoke bombs. This Tuesday, February 7 marks the third day of mobilization against the pension reform, and the demonstrators are still there. In Paris, they are 400,000 to beat the pavement according to the CGT, as many as on January 19, but 100,000 less than on January 31.
On the adjacent Boulevard des Italiens, orange CFDT, red CGT, burgundy FO or even blue CFTC balloons rise. The more time passes, the more difficult traffic becomes. On the square, the first signs appear: “You pass the Elisabeth terminals”, is it written on one; “It’s the confrontation between the France of Excel tables and the France of reality”, summarizes another. In soundtrack, various and varied covers, combining Gala, Sia and Patrick Sébastien.
“It’s for our parents, our teachers, it’s for the retirement of our old people! “: high school students are also mobilizing
On this third day of national mobilization against the pension reform project, while the text has been debated since Monday in the Assembly, the dialogue between the demonstrators and the government seems to be completely broken. Despite the government’s meager concessions on long careers or the minimum retirement pension of 1,200 euros, the key word is the withdrawal of the reform – that’s all. “As long as the government does not move on the age, I will be in the street. I will do all the demonstrations and all the strikes”, promises Matthieu, salesman, who demonstrates within the procession of Young Communists. “It’s not always easy on the wallet but we do it because if we don’t do it now it will be too late”, he continues.
No negotiations on the starting age
Evelyne, a retired economist since 2015, shares the same discourse. She wants the government “removes the heart of the reform” : raising the retirement age to 64 and extending the contribution period to 43 in 2027, instead of 2035 as provided for in the previous reform. “If they don’t, we will continue to go to the streets”she insists.
Half of my colleagues are on ChatGPT, the other half on Info-retraite
64 year olds? Civil servants, railway workers, students… in the procession, no one is ready to flinch on this point. “When we are told ‘you’re going to work another two more years’, when the professional integration rate for young people is low, we say to ourselves that it’s not 64 years old, it’s more like 67 or 68 years old”, laments Max, a master’s student in international economics at Paris-1. The 23-year-old adds:
“Finally, we will be precarious all our lives and retire even later. »
A little higher in the procession, wearing an orange CFDT vest, Adélaïde talks with her colleagues. This HRD secretary at the Mantes-la-Jolie hospital joined a union when she saw the situation of her healthcare colleagues “who find it difficult to be suitable for their position already at the end of their career”. “The problem is also financialshe points. Already now, with retirement at age 62, people are postponing their departure to have a full rate at age 64. So, after the reform, at what age will people really leave? »
“We hope that the movement will grow”
The situation is a little different for Fabrice. Firefighter in the Yvelines, his job allows him to retire earlier. From the age of 57, in his case. “If they ever take that right away from us, I will leave like everyone else at 62, even 64 or 65”he laments.
How do you respond to your brother-in-law who repeats that “other countries have raised the retirement age”?
The protest around age continues to mobilize en masse. But for how long ? “We hope that the movement will grow and that we will not let go”, says Caroline Blot, Federal Secretary CFDT Metallurgie. Before the start, the leader of the CGT Philippe Martinez called for strikes “harder, more massive, more numerous”, “if the government persists in not listening”.
