"The first instruction is that each and everyone keep their cool but do not let themselves be intimidated in any way", launched Jean-Luc Mélenchon Thursday in Marseille, denouncing an Emmanuel Macron playing "the strategy of paralysis, of provocation and chaos".
Calling on everyone to "throw all their strength into the battle" against the pension reform, the leader of France Insoumise joked about those who "gargle about the supposed violence" of the demonstrations: "There is no violence in the movement that we are experiencing and that there are here or there four or five garbage cans burning is nothing compared to what we have seen in the past".
Reaffirming that what could above all "poison" power is "a people intensely mobilized and frankly radicalized in their opposition to the reform of retirement at 64", Mr. Mélenchon called on the demonstrators "to continue to master the forms of their action".
At the same time, the Insoumis leader denounced a head of state and a government who would like to set up "a conditional and conditioned rule of law".
“We cannot live in a country where we have the freedom to participate in rallies unless there is a preventive arrest, in a country where the right to strike applies unless the prefect decides to requisition”, like this was, for example, carried out by the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters at the Fos-sur-Mer oil depot, near Marseille.
A certainty for Mr. Mélenchon: "The so-called breathlessness of the movement will not take place, (...) people will not give in, even if you speak to them with so much arrogance, they will not lower their noses" .
"This is called popular censorship", he concluded his speech, on the Old Port, before the start of the demonstration, in reference to the motion of censure narrowly rejected Monday at the National Assembly, in nearly nine voices.
In Marseille, transport is disrupted and one of the sites of the University of Aix-Marseille, near the Saint-Charles station is blocked by students.
A provided procession began to set off, according to an AFP journalist. On the dome of La Major cathedral, near the sea, a banner was affixed: "general strike".
Mr. Mélenchon announced that he will speak again in the evening, after the meeting of the inter-union.
23/03/2023 14:19:33 - Marseille (AFP) © 2023 AFP
