Twelve days after the first day of protests against the pension reform, the French are back on the streets: Fewer striking public sector workers, more demonstrators on the streets. In an aggravated climate and without dialogue between the unions and the government, with the reform project in parliament since yesterday, the marches took place almost everywhere in a climate of social anger, but without major incidents. In Paris, some scuffles at the end of the demonstration, but no injuries and with a minimum number of detainees, only thirty.
At the end of the day, a real numbers war had broken out, with even more sensational differences than usual: 500,000 participants in the Paris march – according to the number of the most radical trade union CGT – and even 2.8 million in total from France. A significant increase from the more than 2 million on January 19 (400,000 in Paris). But the prefecture lowered the estimate and liquidated the Paris procession, which numbered 87,000 participants. The figure from Occurrence, an independent observatory funded by major media and specializing in counting participants, is even lower: just 55,000. The number of strikers has fallen sharply, 1 in 5 in the civil service versus 28% on 19th January.
Few flights were cancelled, the percentage of absent railway workers fell from 46.5% to 36.5%. Aside from the numbers, it’s the deteriorating climate in the country that has observers concerned, especially after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne dismissed any negotiations as saying “there is no more room for negotiation in 64 years”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of Nupes, the alliance of the left, argued today that “Macron will surely lose this fight”: “It is an exceptional situation – he said – there will be a before and an after, this is a civil uprising .” In his opinion, the solution is to have the reform put to the vote in a popular referendum. Marine Le Pen, who is hostile to the reform but also to the strategy of the left to counteract it, takes a completely different view: “Nupes endangers them possibility of rejecting this text – she said – the more the left puts forward thousands of childish amendments, pure and simple obstructionism, and the smaller the chance that we will succeed”.
The unions have been united so far, and this is a first in France in recent years. Now that the bill moves into the parliamentary process, they need to maintain a high presence in the plazas and it doesn’t seem like an easy challenge. In the evening a compromise was found at union headquarters on the need to demonstrate over the weekend to circumvent the problem of the few strikers registered today and to increase participation on the streets. The extremists pushed for two consecutive days of mobilization during the week. The compromise was found over two days of strikes and protests announced earlier this evening if the government does not withdraw the reform: Tuesday 7 February and Saturday 11 February.
Protests in France against the pension plan
The new mobilization represents the struggle of the French “people” “against the caste and their government”. France Insoumise President Jean-Luc Mélenchon supports this in a message published on Twitter. “Today is not an ordinary day – writes Mélenchon – it is the day of the great sun of the people. They defend their right to a human existence before the caste and their government.” Mélenchon is expected at the event in Marseille today.
Protests in France against the pension plan