A warning, before a new round in the street. Neglecting the “large-scale mobilizations” against the pension reform “would be a fault” for the government as for the Parliament, warns the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, on Saturday in an interview with Le Monde.
“The population is very unfavorable to the project, and this opinion is tending to gain momentum”, affirms the leader of the first French union, three days before a new day of demonstrations everywhere in France against the pension reform and the postponement from the legal age to 64 years.
After the “large-scale mobilizations” of January 19 (1.12 million participants according to the police, more than 2 million according to the organizers), with in particular “large processions in medium-sized towns”, the boss of the CFDT emphasizes that “opinion constitutes an element of the balance of power”.
“The government must listen to it, Parliament must be concerned about what is happening everywhere,” he adds, while the bill will be examined in the Assembly from Monday.
Not in favor of a multiplication of days of action
Not taking this context into account “would be a fault”, therefore warns Laurent Berger, worried about the consequences “if the text passed as it is, without any inflection”, at the risk of generating “resentment” and favoring the far right. “We don’t need democratic chaos,” he insists.
Anxious to “keep public opinion” on his side, he does not support the blocking strategy advocated by other organizations, judging that “the level of trade union effectiveness is not measured by the level of concrete hassle for citizens “. Nor is he in favor of a multiplication of days of action, because “many workers cannot keep up with such an intense pace, he believes that “it still takes one or two demonstrations of force” for the executive to “take aware of the powerful rejection that his text arouses”.