According to the CGT, 3.5 million people demonstrated on Tuesday, March 7, in France for the sixth day of mobilization against the pension reform, announced the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez. For its part, the Ministry of the Interior counted 1.28 million demonstrators.
Both estimates are higher than those of January 31, the previous record since the start of the movement. That day, the CGT had estimated that 2.5 million demonstrators had beaten the pavement in France, the Ministry of the Interior had counted 1.27 million.
For thirty years, few social movements have mobilized more than a million people in the streets, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Most were linked to the reforms of the pension system (in 1995, under the government of Alain Juppé, in 2003, under François Fillon, then in 2010 during the Woerth reform), but the mobilizations were also strong against the creation of the first job contract (CPE) in 2006, or the reform of the labor law in 2016.
The graph below summarizes the attendance of the largest social events that have been the subject of a national count by the Ministry of the Interior. The unions generally put forward much higher figures, but it also happens that they do not communicate a balance sheet at the scale of the country.