The unions got it right this time. More than a million people have demonstrated across France against the pension reform proposed by Macron and his government, whose big workhorse is to extend working life by two years. According to the police, the mobilization exceeded one million two hundred thousand people across France. in one of the most massive demonstrations that there has been in France since 2012, when the then Labor Minister Éric Woerth also presented a pension reform.
After the success, the unions called for demonstrations again on February 7th and 11th. The French trade union organizations are assured that “it will not stop” until they manage to stop the reform that is dividing society. Half a million people demonstrated in Paris. The unions assert that thanks to their pressure against the Macron government, they have a larger number of affiliates for the first time.
The country’s medium-sized cities have mobilized again against Macron’s bill, whose basic vector is to increase life in France, to try to maintain the pension system, one of the most powerful in the European Union. In return, Macron wants the working life to be extended by two years and that 40 years have contributed to collecting the maximum pension. France, like all countries in the European Union, has a major problem with pensions, the retirement of the baby boom generation and the general social trend of working less to have more time for private life.