France celebrates this Thursday a new day of general strike against the pension reform of Emmanuel Macron. It is the ninth, but there is a difference between this and the previous eight: the street is much more inflamed and has been heating up since last Thursday, when Macron decided to approve the unpopular law by decree, without a parliamentary vote, despite having the country in against. His intervention on television yesterday, assuring that he is not going to withdraw the project, has been the auction.
Macron speaks; the street responds. If the pension reform was the mother of all reforms, today's is the mother of all strikes. Major French cities are holding protests and there are blockades in key sectors such as transport. A group of protesters this morning blocked access to Terminal 1 of the Parisian Charles de Gaulle airport, while 20% of flights were canceled at Paris-Orly. Civil Aviation has also asked to cancel for Friday.
In both aerodromes the fuel reserves are at the limit, due to the strike in some refineries in the country. This shortage already affects 15% of service stations. At the Gare de Lyon in Paris, some protesters with CGT posters stormed the tracks, and there are problems in the metro, regional lines and suburban trains, with 25% support for the strike at the French railway company, the SNCF.
For this day, Interior has mobilized 12,000 police and gendarmes, about 5,000 to Paris, a device similar to the one deployed during the World Cup final, which pitted France against Argentina.
Since last Thursday, when the pension reform was approved by decree, protests have been repeated daily throughout the country, spontaneous and unauthorized demonstrations that have ended with the burning of containers, barricades, police charges and clashes between agents and protesters. especially in Paris.
In the last week, the ghost of the yellow vests, the protest movement that marked Macron's first term, has risen. Today's mobilization, called by the unions, will serve as a thermometer to assess whether the anger is growing and we are witnessing a similar revolt or, on the contrary, the mobilization loses intensity.
While the street keeps the pulse, the Government accuses the radical left of La France Insumisa, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of encouraging the overflows. This denounces the excessive violence in police charges in recent days. In Marseille, 280,000 people have demonstrated, compared to 160,000 the previous day, that of March 15, according to the unions. The marches are repeated in the main cities of the country. The one in Paris begins at 2:00 p.m. and will go from Place de la Bastille to the Opera Garnier.
Macron addressed the French on Wednesday in a television interview to ensure that the reform, which is opposed by seven out of 10 and which aims to delay the retirement age from the current 62 to 64, will go ahead. He does so after having passed two motions of no confidence on Monday, one of them by only nine votes, which sought to overthrow the project and the Government.
Without a majority in the Assembly, the president decided last Thursday to resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution that allows the approval of a law without going through the vote of the deputies. Unions and the opposition accuse him of having imposed his law by force, despite having the country against it. The unions, united for the first time in decades against this reform, have said that they will continue with the mobilizations. Added to the blockades are 24% of strikers in national education and in Paris the garbage collectors' strike is already in its third week, with 10,000 tons of garbage scattered throughout the capital.
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