“I hope this time things will change.” In a crowded metro line 2 train, in Paris, a young man chats with a young woman while waiting to arrive at Nation, the terminus. Like the other demonstrators gathered in the capital on Sunday, October 16, they respond to the call from the left, united under the banner of Nupes, to march “against the high cost of living and climate inaction”. According to the count of the Occurrence firm carried out for a media collective, including franceinfo, they are 29,500 to have mobilized on Sunday, a figure close to that of the police (30 000) but well below that claimed by the organizers (140,000).
On the Place de la Nation, a little before the start of the march, small heterogeneous militant groups gather and signs flourish in the crowd. “Ecology without social is gardening“, summarizes on a sign Anne, professor of history and geography from Saône-et-Loire, and activist within La France insoumise (LFI). “Today we denounce the same exploitation of the planet and of human beings”, she says, her eyes smiling behind large round glasses.
Increase in wages, abandonment by the government of the pension reform, but also taxation of superprofits, the beginning of an ecological shift… For the demonstrators interviewed by franceinfo, all these demands are linked. “The planet is cracking and our social model no longer holds, we have reached the end of a certain capitalist mode of production”, argues Virginie, a farm worker, finishing a sandwich on the sidelines of the procession. With Fabien, teacher, who accompanies him in yellow raincoat, they came to Paris “for the first time in the context of a demonstration”. Before, they participated in the gatherings of “yellow vests” in Saint-Etienne (Loire), where they live.
Today they made the trip. “It’s a sign, says Fabien. We hope that if there are many of us today, it will give strength to others to mobilize.” The day chosen for the march, a Sunday, allowed them to come without having to give up a day’s salary, in a context of “difficult end of the month”. “My mother is 80 years old, she believed in liberalism all her life. Today, with the increase in the price of firewood, she can no longer buy enough to feed her stove”, loose Fabien, pointing to two victims of the system he denounces: “The Planet and the Working Classes.” With Virginie, they hope that the movement started this Sunday will grow. “I place a lot of hope in the younger generation to change things”, says the worker.
A young generation present in the procession and very concerned by the climate issue. As a flag, some brandish survival blankets. “In fifty years, it is we who will experience the consequences of global warming”underlines Lisa, student in master of communication, accustomed to demonstrations for the climate. “The coming changes raise social questions : their effects on public health, the ever-increasing inequalities between the countries of the North and the countries of the South”, explains her friend Diane, an art history student. “With the scorching summer that we have just had, the shortages that we are experiencing… People are realizing that this does not only happen to others”, hope Lisa.
The social demands expressed during the march also motivated them to move. “We are already preparing to struggle when we enter the job market, so try to get things moving now”, adds the young woman. With a work-study salary, she modestly explains that she got used to “for several years” to go shopping “in the cheapest places” and get dressed “with second-hand clothes”. She explains that she also wants to fight for her parents, caregivers, hit hard by inflation and rising energy prices. “They are almost more precarious than me”she breathes.
The ecological question and the relationship to time, necessarily counted, that it induces seem to infuse among the demonstrators. “I hope that people will still arrive. If we don’t mobilize now, afterwards, it will be too late”, slips a demonstrator, her nose in the collar of her black jacket, at the start of the rally.
In the middle of the procession, Robin, 36, a mathematical engineer, came with his two-month-old daughter, who dozes in a stroller. “It’s his first demonstration”, smiles this resident of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). Seduced by the proposal “of an alliance of ecological and social responses”, he moved with the hope that the movement “can give political weight to the left-wing opposition”. The young man claims, for example, to be in favor of a reinstatement of the solidarity tax on wealth or a taxation of superprofits. “Total abuses, we taste”echoes a banner a little further in the procession, in reference to the record profits recently recorded by the oil giant.
On a real estate sign, someone stuck a poster: “Strikers, we are with you!” While a strike is currently paralyzing the refineries of TotalEnergies for a wage increase, and a new day of interprofessional mobilization is already planned for Tuesday, October 18, the march echoes this beginning of protest. “Refiner support”, can we read here and there on signs and leaflets. At the head of the procession, a banner displays in colored letters: “Social heat wave, the people are thirsty for justice.” Like a summary of the mobilization of the day.