2023-06-06 21:50:00
REPORTAGE – This Tuesday, June 6, in Paris, the mobilization against the pension reform has not reached its previous level. If the traditional May Day had brought together a record number of demonstrators, many disgruntled people gave up taking to the streets for this 14th day of demonstration. For Workers’ Day, according to a union source, nearly 2.5 million people marched in major cities, including 600,000 in Paris. This time, the CGT announces “more than 900,000 demonstrators” in France (281,000 according to the Police), including 300,000 in Paris (31,000 according to the Paris Police Prefecture) alone. This does not mean that the anger has receded.
Despite good weather and the inter-union appeal launched yesterday in favor of “l’amplification” movement “against Macron’s retirement”Admittedly, the challenge is marking time.
Can this be partly explained by the high school and student calendar of exams, between baccalaureate and partials, which undoubtedly weighed on the numbers of young people who pounded the pavement? Or by the financial burden, for employees, of many days not worked to demonstrate, which is beginning to be felt? Or, by the little chance of seeing the reform retreat this June 8 in Parliament?
The secretary general of the CGT, Sophie Binet indicated the need “to let Parliament vote” to avoid “a huge democratic anomaly”. Lawrence Berger, soon to retire from the CFDTis not optimistic about this democratic issue: “It didn’t go well”deplores the union leader.
On the political side, if the hope of a last stand in the National Assembly is desired by the left and the LIOT deputies, the reactions take into account this manifest demobilization.
“The match is over” but “we must not let them go”
According to Senator Bruno Retailleau (LR), “the match is played”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) announced that “the struggle will continue” nevertheless, against the pensions law, without knowing exactly “in what form”. For MP Sabrina Agresti Roubache (RN), “The French say to themselves that they have to know when to stop. People, in their real lives, have already moved on.”
Within the Parisian procession, the French mobilized nevertheless give a glimpse of an intact motivation and convictions riveted to the body. According to a demonstrator (the interviewees preferred to remain anonymous, editor’s note), this demonstration is above all a means of expressing oneself “against this putsch that was done to us”, par “a government that hijacks the law”. She observes that “public services have been dismantled” and wonder what “electroshock” it would take to wake up his fellow citizens.
A demonstrator considers this to be “of the last demonstration in Intersyndicale”, “the CFDT said it was going to stop”. But another protester gives a different meaning to this day of protest, more open and determined: “I came to support the policies that support us” and refuse “this degradation of our public services”, even if she also claims not to be done “no illusions”about the possibility of a withdrawal from the law.
What other forms might mobilization take in the future? According to her, “casserolades” are possible, but also the fact “to go everywhere, to municipal councils, to let nothing pass, we must not let them go”. In short, never give up.
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