During the demonstration in Paris, this February 7. SARAH MEYSSONNIER / REUTERS
This new “national day of interprofessional action” will take place just five days after the next one, scheduled for Saturday February 11.
After January 19, January 31, February 7 and February 11, the unions opposed to the pension reform are calling on the French to take to the streets a fifth time in just a few days, on Thursday February 16. “The inter-union meeting today decided on a national day of interprofessional action on February 16“, told AFP Dominique Corona, deputy secretary general of Unsa, on behalf of the intersyndicale.
This decision was taken the day after a third day of mobilization which resulted in a significant drop in the number of demonstrators in the streets of France: 757,000 people marched, according to the authorities, this Tuesday, against 1, 27 million a week earlier. An expected dynamic: this day was closer to that of January 31, on the one hand, and part of the French are on vacation, on the other hand, the trade unions justify themselves. In addition, going on strike costing a day’s wages, many employees are reluctant to repeat it, it is explained.
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However, despite the winter holidays, there is no question of releasing the pressure on the government, warn the opponents. Saturday should allow more employees, especially in the private sector, to demonstrate. A way to show his opposition to the reform project, without losing a day’s salary. A “pari“, too, concede the unions, who hope to see people in the streets of France this weekend.
Then, the new date of February 16 will keep the pressure on the executive. Impossible indeed to spend three weeks without acting, the timetable for debates in Parliament on the reform being extremely tight, argue the trade unionists. The debates in the National Assembly must thus, in theory, end on February 17, the day after the new day of action. Beyond that, the centrals have their eyes fixed on the end of the holidays, at the beginning of March, to strike a blow.
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It remains to be seen how the social movement will evolve, and in particular whether it will continue beyond a possible vote on reform in Parliament. Tuesday, shortly before the start of the Paris demonstration, the boss of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, called for “harder, more numerous, more massive, and renewable strikes”. If the government continues to turn a deaf ear, the social movementwill move up a gear“, he warned. “We want to continue to mobilize“, assured his counterpart of the CFDT, Laurent Berger. And to add that “nothing is excluded» for the follow-up to be given to the mobilization.