“For the climate, the urgency is above all to reduce our working time”, say environmental NGOs

They denounce a dangerous reform for the fight against global warming. In this column published by franceinfo.fr, environmental NGOs make the link between their everyday fight and the pension reform proposed by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. “To work more is to produce more, it is to extract more, it is to pollute more”, they denounce. They also believe that the government has the wrong priority: “The report of the Pensions Orientation Council (COR) does not predict an unlivable world in 2050, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Giec ), whether”. They express themselves here freely.

We are scientists, artists, activists, and ordinary citizens and have been warning for years about the threats to the habitability of our planet. Accustomed to climate marches, non-violent civil disobedience actions or field work, the mobilization against the current pension reform also concerns us.

This reform goes against all current issues. On the one hand, in a context of massive inflation and the energy crisis which are causing serious financial difficulties for French men and women, particularly the most precarious, it will deepen the inequalities already present in the world of work. On the other hand, while the climate challenge is one of the absolute priorities, this reform will only make the situation worse.

Working more means producing more, extracting more, polluting more. Built on an insatiable productivist economic model, destroyer of the climate and biodiversity, the pension reform goes against the urgency, the real one.

At a time when we need to rethink the relationship to work and to the world, the government persists in a model of the old world.

The signatories of the tribune

on franceinfo

The priority can no longer be the increase in production to satisfy arbitrary objectives of economic growth; our society must be resolutely turned towards the well-being of the individuals who compose it, and its ecological sustainability. Instead of ever more exploitation of human beings and natural resources, and ever more profits for a handful of billionaires, it is the overall reduction in working time that we must pursue and ask the question of the meaning of work in order to respond to the social and environmental needs, to work better and work less.

Flaunting the Paris International Climate Agreement, the government is sabotaging the implementation of an ambitious climate policy. For him, there is an urgent need to reform pensions while the Pensions Orientation Council tells us that the system is not in danger. Conversely, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been warning for decades about the dangers of climate change, without the government seeming to take the measure, to the point that all For years, since 2018, the High Council for the Climate has castigated the inadequacy of the public policies implemented. Worse, the government is taking advantage of the focus of attention on the pension system to pass repressive laws against civil society actors, such as the so-called “anti-squat” Kasbarian-Bergé law or the law criminalizing intrusions into sports grounds under the pretext of ensuring the security of the 2024 Olympic Games. He does not master the sense of urgency, and aggravates crises.

The COR report does not predict an unlivable world in 2050, the IPCC report does.

The signatories of the tribune

on franceinfo

To attack the pay-as-you-go system is to pursue a regressive climate policy. With the reform, the uncertainty of the retirement age and the amount of the retirement pension will encourage those who can to build up additional savings in the private sector, with asset managers. These savings will therefore be managed by insurers and banks, which mainly finance fossil fuels, thus accelerating climate change.

This is why, with the majority of the population, we are opposed to this pension reform. It is part of a logic that exhausts humans and the planet by aiming for the unsustainable goals of infinite growth in a finite world.

The sense of progress, particularly in its social dimension, should lead us towards a fair, balanced society and allow us to live better, to have time for ourselves, to choose what we produce and how we produce it. The human becomes an obstacle for liberal capitalism which prefers machines which do not go on strike, do not stop working and which do not claim retirement!

From March 7, if the government and parliamentarians remained deaf to popular protest, the unions called for the social movement to be amplified by bringing France to a standstill in all sectors. We all have good reasons to join this call and fight to collectively build a desirable future on a viable planet. Throughout France, we will again be millions to join the mobilization to stop this pension reform.

The petitioners :

Lucie Chhieng – Spokesperson Alternatiba Paris
Elodie Nace – Spokesperson Alternatiba Paris
Charles de Lacombe – Spokesperson Alternatiba ANV Rhône
Tatiana Guille – Spokesperson Alternatiba ANV Rhône
Jean-François Julliard – Managing Director of Greenpeace France
Khaled Gaiji – President of Friends of the Earth France
Clémence Dubois – Campaign Manager 350.org France
Camille Etienne – climate activist
Vincent Gay – sociologist
Xavier Capet – oceanographer
Agnès Ducharne – climatologist
Maxime Combes – economist
Renaud Bécot – historian
Geneviève Pruvost – Research Director at CNRS

Alice Picard – Attac France co-spokesperson
Corinne Bascove – Alternatiba ANV Montpellier
Christophe Oudelin – Alternatiba Marseille
Razmig Keucheyan, sociologist, paris Cité university
Anne Le Corre – Ecological spring spokesperson
Delphine Moussard – Lecturer Aix-Marseille University
Anahita Grisoni – Sociologist – Urban planner Associate researcher UMR 5600
Jeanne Guien – Independent researcher
Alexis Tantet – Ecopolian Member
Anne Marchand – Co-director GISCOP93 (Scientific interest group on work-related cancers)
Etienne Pauthenet – National Research Institute Research Institute for Development – Laboratory of Physical and Spatial Oceanography
Stéphanie Boniface – IPSL Carbon Assessment Project Manager, CNRS
Clément Soufflet – Postdoctoral fellow Laboratory of the atmosphere and cyclones
Josyane Ronchail – Researcher Locean – IPSL
Robin Rolland – LOCEAN PhD student – Sorbonne University
Louis Rouyer – Doctoral student Sorbonne University
COLIN Marie – Administrator United for Climate and Biodiversity
Rémi Laxenaire – Contract Researcher University of Reunion
Renaud Metereau – Teacher-Researcher, Economist Paris Cité University
Adrien Marie – COP21 Nonviolent Action Spokesperson
Margot Fontaneau – Alternatiba spokesperson
Janine Vincent – Alternatiba Annonay
Morgane Carrier – Member Alternatiba ANV Toulouse
Tom Baumert – Member Alternatiba Strasbourg
Adrienne Pernot du Breuil – Alternatiba/ANV 63 volunteer member
Manuel Mercier – AMU Researcher
Vincent Lamy – ANV-COP21 Toulouse
Pierre Guillon – Member Atecopol Aix-Marseille
Pablo Flye – Spokesperson Fridays For Future France
Louise ULRICH – Board member Fridays for Future France
Robin Plauchu – LSCE Laboratory
Pierre-Luc Bardet – Lecturer-researcher Sorbonne University
Sébastien LEBONNOIS – researcher
Laurent Fairhead – researcher
Carole Philippon – researcher
Myriam Quatrini – researcher