Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marching across the country, very disrupted transport on the rail network and in Paris, schools closed: France faced a day of massive strike on Thursday against the pension reform project, a test for President Emmanuel Macron in a tense economic and social context.
The project, with its flagship measure, the postponement of the retirement age to 64 against 62 today, is coming up against a united trade union front and widespread hostility in public opinion according to the polls.
In the Parisian procession, signs proclaim “Metro, job, tomb” or “Metro, job, vault”.
“It’s not so much for me, because I’m a manager, I started working at 25, so anyway, even without the reform, I retire at 65. But it is out of solidarity because it is a completely unfair reform and which strongly disadvantages the working classes, ”said Damien Mathieu, 36, an IT employee, demonstrating in Toulouse (south-west).
Protesters pounded the pavement Thursday morning in many French cities, before the Parisian procession set off in the early afternoon to say “no” to the decline in the legal retirement age.
Channeling discontent
The Ministry of the Interior has counted 1.12 million demonstrators in France, including 80,000 in Paris, he announced Thursday evening.
The CGT union, for its part, put forward the figure of “more than 2 million” demonstrators, according to its secretary general, Philippe Martinez, for whom this pension reform “channels all the discontent” in France.
More than 200 demonstrations took place in Paris and in the regions, mostly peaceful. A few clashes, tensions or damage were reported in Paris, Lyon (east) and Rennes (west).
The mobilization “is beyond what we thought”, welcomed the number one of the CFDT union, Laurent Berger.
The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, admitted that the mobilization had been “significant”. Deeming it “normal” that a pension reform “raises concerns”, he indicated that it was necessary to “respond” and “listen to the messages”.
A new day of mobilization against the reform is already scheduled for January 31. The eight main French unions agreed on this date, according to several union sources, during a meeting after the Paris demonstration.
Fears of being “broken” in retirement
The processions brought together many public or private workers fearing to be “worn out” or “broken” at 64, such as Nathalie Etchegaray, 48, childminder in Orléans (center).
“I’ve been working for 25 years, I’ve never gone on strike before. The trigger is seeing our older colleagues who have pain everywhere. They have sciatica, back pain, tendonitis in the elbows from carrying the babies,” she explains.
The agents of the public electricity company EDF have cut electricity production, reaching at least the equivalent of twice the consumption of Paris.
On the side of the refineries, the CGT TotalEnergies had between 70 and 100% of strikers, on most of the group’s sites.
The strike was very popular in transport, with almost no regional trains, few high-speed trains (TGV), a slow-moving metro in Paris and a very underserved large suburb.
Many public services have been the subject of strike calls, in particular education, where the main union, the FSU, has counted 70% of striking teachers in schools and 65% in colleges and high schools.
The French under pressure, Macron too
Emmanuel Macron plays big. The pension reform is a crucial project of the second five-year term, for which he had committed himself from the campaign of his first term. His party, which does not have a majority in the National Assembly, could be weakened if the movement were deep and lasting.
This political test for the president comes in a tense economic and social context. The French are suffering the effects of high inflation, at 5.2% on average in 2022, in a country which was shaken during Emmanuel Macron’s first term by the demonstrations of “Yellow Vests” against high prices.
On Thursday, Mr. Macron came out of his silence on this reform from Barcelona – where he went as part of a Franco-Spanish summit – saying he hoped that the demonstrations in France would take place “without excesses”, while defending a project which, according to him, has already been “democratically validated”.
France is one of the European countries where the legal retirement age is the lowest, without the pension systems being completely comparable.
The government has chosen to extend working hours in response to the financial deterioration of pension funds and the aging of the population. He defends his project by presenting it as a “conveyor of social progress” in particular by upgrading small pensions.