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The 5th day of mobilization against the pension reform project in France, this Thursday (16), should be less followed than previously. Meanwhile, the reform debate continues in the Assembly under tension. The Minister of Labor was called a murderer on Monday (13), after a deputy posted a photo with his picture nailed to a ball.
Last week the plenary session ended in shouting and confusion, with the suspension for two weeks of the deputy of the party France Insubmissa (LFI), Thomas Portes, photographed with his foot on a ball with the image of the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt .
Just an hour and a half after the start of the discussions, another LFI deputy, Aurélien Saintoul, verbally attacked the minister. “You are an imposter and a murderer,” he snarled amidst Dussopt’s screams. The session was immediately interrupted. The minister furiously left the plenary.
“It’s becoming unbearable. You can’t do politics like that, you can’t. These are unacceptable acts”, denounced the deputy of the Democratic Movement party (MoDem), Bruno Milienne, indignant.
Indignation was also seen among LFI allies such as André Chassaigne, president of the communist group in the Assembly. “Making such comments is absolutely unacceptable,” he lamented.
The government, which only has a relative majority, suffered its first major setback on Tuesday night. The deputies rejected one of the articles of the text due to the vote against by part of the republican deputies, the party with which the Executive counts to approve the reform.
The leader of the extreme right, Marine Le Pen, announced on Wednesday night the presentation of a motion of censure “so that the deputies opposed” to the pension reform “can express their rejection of the text”, alluding to a ” parliamentary referendum”.
minor mobilization
In the streets, the mobilization should have less adhesion this Thursday. The inter-union front against the Social Security reform project wants to put all its forces into action on March 7th, when it threatens to “paralyze” the country if the government does not give up raising the retirement age to 64 years, against 62 today.
Launched in January, a petition of eight unions united against a reform considered “unfair and brutal” reached the symbolic mark of one million signatures on Wednesday (14), according to the change.org platform.
On the last day of demonstrations, Saturday (11), 963 thousand people demonstrated, according to the authorities, more than 2.5 million according to the unions.
A police source said between 450,000 and 650,000 people are expected across the country on Thursday, of which between 40,000 and 70,000 in Paris.
Interruptions are expected to be limited to public transport, with normal traffic on the Paris Metro. About 30% of flights at Paris-Orly, the airport that concentrates most of the domestic routes, will be canceled and the regional airports affected.
Since this Wednesday afternoon, many hydroelectric plants have gone on strike, in particular the most powerful in France, in Grand’Maison (southeast), leaving the equivalent of around 3,000 MW unavailable to the grid.
Debates in the Assembly should end on Friday (17) at midnight. But on Wednesday, around 4 pm (12 pm in Brasilia), about 14,000 amendments remained to be examined.