The leader of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on Tuesday Emmanuel Macron to become “reasonable”, accusing him of “wanting to start his five-year term with a coup” with the pension reform.
“Unless he has become totally authoritarian, in a democracy, at some point, someone has to be reasonable and it is necessarily he who must become so since it is he who has the responsibility to have created this conflict from scratch,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon told the press on a picket line at the Gare de Lyon, in Paris, on the occasion of the mobilization day.
Emmanuel Macron “is trying to start his new five-year term with a coup by showing that he is the boss”, he assured, accusing the president of undertaking the pension reform for “totally artificial reasons”.
“The big week” for mobilization
For the leader of the Insoumis, this week will be “the big week”, with the third day of mobilization against the pension reform and another day of demonstrations planned for Saturday by the unions. “It is now that you have a situation which is quite exceptional, since street mobilization (…) is combined with the parliamentary battle”, he added.
The debate on the pension reform project began Monday in the National Assembly, where the government does not have an absolute majority.