Demonstrators took to the streets again on Thursday, a little less numerous, for the 11th time against the pension reform while discussions between unions and government are deadlocked, a week before the decision of the Constitutional Council.
The unions counted "nearly two million" demonstrators in France, while the Ministry of the Interior counted 570,000, down sharply from the last day of action on March 28 (740,000). In Paris, the Interior counted 57,000 people and the CGT 400,000.
Asked on France 5 on Thursday evening about this decline, the general secretary of the CFDT Laurent Berger noted that the mobilizations remained "important". "Yes, it becomes harder for some employees because each time it is a loss of salary," he added.
The inter-union nevertheless called for a 12th day of strikes and demonstrations against the pension reform on Thursday April 13, on the eve of the long-awaited decision of the Constitutional Council.
Before the departure of the Parisian procession, the new secretary general of the CGT Sophie Binet had lambasted 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.
Symbolic image in Paris, clashes broke out in the middle of the afternoon near La Rotonde, a famous restaurant in the Montparnasse district where Emmanuel Macron celebrated his score in the first round of the 2017 presidential election. Part of his canvas awning burned before firefighters quickly intervened.
The clashes continued between several hundred radical demonstrators and the police and at 7:20 p.m., 31 people had been arrested in Paris.
In Lyon, damage was committed on the route, including a looted Nespresso store and a destroyed Tesla car.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, tweeted around 8:00 p.m. a report of 154 wounded among the police and 111 arrests at the national level.
After almost three months of conflict, the demonstrators are displaying an unfailing determination, like Samy Andrieux, 27 years old in Clermont-Ferrand, ready to mobilize "as long as it takes" and convinced that "the anger really rises".
The strikes were however less marked, in particular 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.
Railway workers briefly invaded the former headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais in Paris, with smoke bombs and whistles. And the Eiffel Tower was closed.
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. For this refinery, the Administrative Court of Rouen ordered in summary proceedings the suspension of the decree requisitioning strikers.
In education, the ministry has identified less than 8% of striking teachers. Some high schools and universities have been blocked, such as the Sorbonne or Assas.
But as since January 10 and the presentation of the reform, the biggest blockage is mainly to be found between the executive and the unions.
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. For Sophie Binet, the government is "bunkerized" and its "capacity to lead the country is called into question".
For its part, the entourage of the President of the Republic, traveling in China until Saturday, rejected the responsibility for the failure of the dialogue on the unions, and in particular the CFDT which did not "want 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".
In the Parisian procession, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) denounced a "democratic crisis" which "can turn into a crisis of the regime".
The unions will meet again after the decision of the Constitutional Council on April 14. Laurent Berger said he hoped that the Sages would censure "the whole of the law". Failing this, estimated the number one of the FSU Benoît Teste Thursday, a green light to the procedure of referendum of shared initiative (RIP) on pensions "can allow us to maintain the flame".
In the meantime, the government intends to take action. Elisabeth Borne will be in Aveyron on Friday for a trip on the theme of health.
04/06/2023 20:35:46 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
