Two countries, two tones. In France, soldier Olivier Dussopt, deprived of diplomatic travel and sent to the front, chained the microphone of RTL and the cameras of BFMTV on Thursday to deliver the government’s word after the demonstrations against the pension reform. “The mobilization is important, it is undeniable, and there is no point in denying things”, assured the Minister of Labor on the continuous news channel, after having assured on the radio a few hours earlier that it was necessary “to listen to the messages in the processions of this morning and this afternoon”. Bonus for humility. Faced with the million protesters in the streets, according to the Ministry of the Interior, or the two million according to the CGT, did he really have any other choice?
On the other side of the Pyrenees, Emmanuel Macron, he is more firm. Coming out of the Franco-Spanish summit in which he participated, if he is satisfied with the absence of “excesses and violence”, the Head of State chooses to demonstrate his determination by placing the debate on his democratic legitimacy. And so, on his person: “There was also a first round which put me in the lead, where things had been said in great detail and clearly. There were then legislative elections, which gave a majority relative, where things were made clear. Nor can we act as if there had been no elections a few months ago, that’s just what I’m saying, very calmly, because that this reform is part of what was presented.” Here are the protesters warned, if they still had a vague hope: the President of the Republic is and will remain straight in his boots. It’s up to his ministers to deal with that.
This first big day of demonstration, despite its size, will not change anything. Admittedly, the members of the government concede that the number of French people in the street is in the high range of what they expected, however, in the afternoon, at the peak of the mobilization, they tended rather to minimize the ‘event. At least, to normalize it. “It is rather successful, but I am not surprised, it is the opposite which would have been surprising. On the other hand, it is not a card”, slipped a minister around 6 p.m. A few minutes later, another tempered: “It’s quite strong, even if the rate of strikers is lower than in 2019 on the first day.”
It is not so much the figures for this first day that worry the executive as the ability of trade unions and political organizations to reproduce and intensify these mobilizations in the weeks to come. How well will the movement hold up? “It’s the dynamic that will give the ‘the’. We’ll see if it drops or not during the next two or three days organized by the inter-union. That will be the real barometer”, they say in the government, even if a minister foresees a day of Saturday, led by youth organizations with the support of rebellious France, “largely behind” compared to that of Thursday. The next day of demonstrations, scheduled for January 31 by the inter-union, will be a real first test for the unions in their ability to get Mr. and Mrs. everyone on board in their fight.
For weeks, several members of the government team have been betting on less and less frank support from the French, who would be “more tired than angry” in the context of the current economic crisis. “Today people need appeasement, they rather want to be united than divided. They recognize that we are helping, difficult for them to say that we are strangling them”, explains the One. Two. A risk persists, however: that a global discontent against strikes, blockages, or even worse against violent initiatives taken outside any trade union framework, comes to be transferred to the power in place, deemed incapable of stemming them.
In the Macronist ranks, the more time advances, the more we assume the need to remain open to discussion in order to attenuate the voices of opponents. A minister from the right recognizes without difficulty that “on chopped careers, and in particular for women, there are still things to work on”. Another suggests improving the senior index, by making it partly restrictive. Move, perhaps, but at the margin. “Now we are moving forward, confides a member of the government. With this text, we are somewhat in the logic of all or nothing.”
The executive has history on its side: since 1995, never has a pension reform been withdrawn by the mobilization of the street. So, there is never any question of any abandonment. A member of the executive sums up while reassuring himself: “The reform will be voted on, we have the ambition to go all the way. And once that is done, in six months, what will happen? Nothing. Everyone will have forgotten.”