The French government remains adamant on Sunday about its highly contested pension reform, despite new mobilizations and violence, on the eve of a vote to try to overthrow it.
A sign of tension in the country, the office of deputy Eric Ciotti in Nice (south-east), also leader of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party, was stoned overnight from Saturday to Sunday to “put pressure” and that he votes Monday the motion of censure to which he is opposed.
Faced with the challenge, several heavyweights of the presidential majority have stepped up to defend the reform, which aims in particular to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
The “first objective” of the government “is to carry out this reform to save our pension system” and “we hold it”, affirmed the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, to the Journal du Dimanche.
“I think that there will not be a majority to bring down the government”, assured his counterpart of the Economy Bruno Le Maire to the newspaper Le Parisien.
“But it will be a moment of truth. Is pension reform worth yes or no, the fall of the government and political disorder? The answer is clearly no,” he said.
According to a poll published by the Journal du Dimanche, the popularity of Emmanuel Macron collapsed in March, to 28%, the lowest since the exit, in 2019, of the popular protest movement of “yellow vests”. It is 70% dissatisfied.
And, after several days of mobilization and demonstrations, the decision Thursday of the government of Elisabeth Borne to pass this text in force set fire to the powder.
He chose to resort to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a text without a vote, unless a motion of censure is adopted.
Since then, organized or spontaneous gatherings have taken place throughout the territory, calmly or with excesses.
Barricades
The protest has indeed hardened in recent days, carried by young activists, while strikes continue in transport, refineries and garbage collectors.
A situation which led the authorities to prohibit Saturday any gathering on the large Parisian place of Concorde, close to the National Assembly and the presidential palace of the Elysée. Thousands of people had gathered there and clashes had broken out on Thursday and Friday evenings.
The Parisian demonstrators, some 4000, according to a police source, fell back on Saturday evening on the Place d’Italie.
Trash fires littering the streets of the capital, vandalized bus shelters, improvised barricades, clashes with the police… Faced with the thugs, the organizers quickly decided to dissolve the demonstration.
In total, the police carried out 169 arrests in France on Saturday, including 122 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
If Eric Ciotti has already indicated that his party, LR, would not vote for “any” of the motions of censure tabled, so as not to “add chaos to chaos”, a handful of deputies from his camp have announced that they will vote at least for the cross-partisan motion presented by an independent group.
Like Eric Ciotti, other pro-reform parliamentarians have been targeted by opponents, while on Thursday evening, the patroness of the deputies of the presidential majority (Renaissance party), Aurore Bergé, had asked the Minister of the Interior to “mobilize the services of the State” for the “protection of parliamentarians”.
Towards the stop of refineries
The unions have called for increased mobilization over the weekend, in the face of what they call “denial of democracy”.
“The Assembly needs to have a sounding board in the street. We must be there to show that we are in deep disagreement with this reform, ”explained a demonstrator, Léa Botté, 29, in Lille (north).
The CGT union announced on Saturday that the largest refinery in the country, located in Normandy (north-west) and operated by TotalEnergies, had begun to be shut down, a first since the start of the movement against pension reform.
Very heavy technically, the operation will take several days and should not cause immediate fuel shortages, but it could spread. At least two other refineries out of the seven in the country could be shut down no later than Monday, the CGT has warned.
French Industry Minister Roland Lescure hinted on Saturday that the government could retaliate by requisitioning agents, such as for waste collection in Paris, where around 10,000 tonnes of garbage still litter the sidewalks, according to the town hall.