The 14e day of demonstrations against the pension reform in France Tuesday was marked by a declining mobilization, political and union leaders acknowledging to be in a kind of end of “match”.
The processions were more scattered than ever, everywhere in France, after 5 months of mobilizations which did not prevent the government from passing, without it being voted by the National Assembly, this key reform of the second mandate of Emmanuel Macron, who notably pushes back the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.
Some 900,000 people only demonstrated in Paris according to the CGT union, the lowest level since the start of the movement in January, and a few incidents, which have become traditional, have broken out in certain cities. In total, more than 11,000 police and gendarmes were mobilized, including 4,000 in Paris.
The union’s lowest estimate was March 11 with 1 million protesters nationwide.
In Paris, the CGT reported 300,000 demonstrators, against 31,000 for the authorities.
Between fatalism and future battles
“Today, it is fatalism that seems to prevail”, notes in Nantes (West) Mona Le Goaëc, 55, school agent and activist of the reformist union CFDT. “We will have to do with it and provide the best support to people in their working conditions…”.
“The match is ending, whether we like it or not,” said CFDT number one Laurent Berger. He called on the unions to “weigh in on the balance of power to come” on other subjects such as wages or working conditions.
“We want real negotiations,” warned CGT leader Sophie Binet alongside him. Emphasizing that “retirements will always remain a struggle”, she highlighted the objective of “winning concrete progress”.
“The inter-union will remain united,” she added, judging “probable that there will be other demonstrations in view of the anger in the country”.
Unlike previous days, few disruptions were recorded in schools and in transport, even if a third of flights departing from Paris-Orly airport are canceled.
According to a mode of action already used in the past, the electric current was cut in a large area of Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, which houses media headquarters, including RFI radio and the news channel France 24.
In the same vein of punchy action, the headquarters of the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympics was briefly invaded by CGT activists.
“The games are not done”
The feeling of weariness was also visible among the political leaders mobilized against the flagship law of this second term of Mr. Macron.
“The fight will continue”, promised the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, without knowing “in what form”, while that of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, estimated that the government had “not won”.
“The bets are not down,” hammered Mr. Mélenchon. “Something extraordinary happened that will leave an indelible mark on the minds of the French,” he said.
“The president has a country more fractured than ever, the French, despite his efforts to move on to another sequence, want to stick to the question of pensions, no it does not pass”, for his part said the first secretary. of the Socialist Party (PS), Olivier Faure.
But the presidential camp intends to move forward, as evidenced by the publication on Sunday in the Official Journal of the first two implementing decrees, including the one gradually raising the legal retirement age to 64.
The oppositions will therefore try Thursday to support in the National Assembly a bill aimed at repealing the reform, but this initiative has little chance of succeeding.
For the right, “the game is over”, estimated the leader of the senators Les Républicains (LR), Bruno Retailleau.
The popularity rating of the Head of State rebounded slightly, to 31% of favorable opinions against 29% in the previous two months, but that of his Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, fell by 4 points to 26%, its level the lowest, according to a poll released on Tuesday.