Nearly 963,000 people paraded on Saturday against the pension reform, according to the Interior Ministry, and 2.5 million according to the CGT. A particularly strong mobilization in Paris and sensitive in medium -sized cities. The unions threaten to put “France at a judgment” on March 7 if the government does not retreat.
by Franck Johannès (with journalists and correspondents of “world”)
Place de la République in Paris was slowly filled, Saturday, February 11 at midday. A dense and joyful crowd, old, young people, strollers, for this fourth day of fighting pension reform. “It is a family demonstration, howls the sound truck of the CFDT, everyone is on the street!” In the region, the mobilization was significantly more important in medium -sized cities than in metropolises, but everywhere, the social climate is very clear.
The day of demonstration, a weekend, and therefore without strike – but one in two flight was canceled in Orly, due to an unexpected work stoppage of air controllers – was undoubtedly a success: the CGT announced 500,000 people in Paris against 400,000 Tuesday, February 7, the prefecture counted 93,000 people against 57,000 during the last mobilization. In total, some 963,000 people paraded on Saturday in France, according to the Ministry of the Interior, figures clearly increasing compared to Tuesday where the participation had been evaluated at 757,000. For the CGT, 2.5 million people would have mobilized on Saturday.
“Overcoming the million demonstrators would be a great success, had already estimated Laurent Berger on Friday, the secretary general of the CFDT. We have the strongest mobilizations since the early 1990s, and we have the feeling that for Government members, all that does not exist “.
meet on March 7
The managers of the eight main unions confirmed their call to a fifth act on February 16 – despite the holidays in Ile -de -France, in Toulouse and Montpellier – and said they were ready “to harden the movement” and to “Put the country to stop on March 7” if the government and the parliament “remained deaf” to mobilizations. “We are not in the logic of the renewable strike,” admitted Laurent Berger, and “this is not a call to the general strike”.
For Philippe Martinez, “the question of renewal is not decided in terms of union confederations, but in companies and services, said the secretary general of the CGT. The ball is in the camp of the president of the Republic and of the government to know if the movement must be increased, harden, or if they take into account current mobilizations “.
The Paris metro should in any case be strongly affected by the March 7 movement. “If the government still does not hear the determination of workers, youth and all those who support this unitary movement, it will have to assume the blocking of the economy in our country,” warned the inter -union (CGT, Fo , Unsa, CFE-CGC) of the Autonomous Régie des Transports Parisiens (RATP).
You have 71.96% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.