Opposition to pension reform continues to be strong. The third day of mobilization, Tuesday February 7, brought together 757,000 people according to the Ministry of the Interior, and “nearly two million” according to the CGT. These figures are below the previous days, January 19 and 31. But, for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, two days of mobilization took place in the same week. A fourth day is indeed scheduled for Saturday, February 11 throughout France. The Parisian demonstration will leave at 1 p.m. from Place de la République in the direction of Place de la Nation, according to the CGT.
The inter-union expects a more massive challenge during the fourth day of action, Saturday. Interviewed on Wednesday February 8 on BFMTV, the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, said he hoped for a “very strong mobilization” on Saturday and called on everyone to “go and demonstrate massively with the whole family”.
Anxious not to make their action unpopular, the railway workers’ federations did not call for a strike on Saturday, the first day of vacation for zone B and half-time for those in zone A. “The next demonstrations will show the extent of the protest”, predicted the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, ensuring not to fear a drop in mobilization.
Three new mobilization dates, including two in March
The eight main unions united in the intersyndicale have also agreed on a new day of strikes and demonstrations, Thursday, February 16, as they announced on Wednesday. And it’s not over. According to franceinfothe inter-union will announce on Saturday February 11 two new dates to come for “national mobilization”: Tuesday March 7 and Wednesday March 8.
There will be no explicit call for a strike, without however preventing the trade union federations which wish to do so from calling for a two-day strike in their own sector. At this stage, there is no new date envisaged between February 16 and March 7 and 8, due to school holidays, according to union sources interviewed by franceinfo.
“We try to have dates that correspond to strong events”, explained this Thursday, February 9 on franceinfo Cyril Chabanier, president of the CFTC. “February 16 was chosen because it is the last week the text is in the National Assembly and March 8 is Women’s Rights Day,” he said.
The CGT wants “harder and renewable” strikes
Strategic differences are beginning to emerge among the unions, between those who want to harden the movement, in particular through renewable strikes, and those who prefer to stick to demonstrations. The secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, called on Tuesday for “harder, more numerous, more massive, and renewable strikes”. “If the government persists in not listening, inevitably it will have to go up a notch,” he said Tuesday in Paris. On LCI, he repeated that it was necessary to “raise the tone” in front of the executive and that there was “need to decide on strikes, that’s what refiners do, that’s what railway workers do , others are thinking about it too.
Tuesday morning, the secretary general of the CGT-Cheminots Laurent Brun had also called for the movement to be hardened. “We are launching the debate on the need to increase the level of mobilization in the country and in this case at the SNCF”, explained Laurent Brun on Franceinfo. “If we stick to days like these, we do three or four more, the government passes its project,” he warned.
“We will certainly have to go up a notch” in the mobilizations in order to “bring the government to reason” on the pension reform, also estimated Wednesday on franceinfo Erik Meyer, federal secretary of the Sud Rail union. “From the start, we have believed that we will not make the government back down without a blocking movement for the country,” said the trade unionist, explaining that the continuation of the movement will depend on the number of people in the streets on February 11. “The balance sheet on the mobilization, it will be clearly done on Saturday evening”. Same story for Benoît Teste. According to the secretary general of the FSU, “to go up a notch, it will be from March 6, after the (school) holidays”. “Until then we must maintain a high level of mobilization,” he said.
Asked Tuesday about the fact of hardening the mobilization, the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger explained that the unions will try to “do stronger next Saturday”. “But harder, what does that mean? What is the democratic perspective of a country whose leaders would not listen to the biggest social mobilization of the last thirty years?” he replied.
At the SNCF, the prospect of a renewable strike is moving away
The questions are particularly marked at the SNCF. The railway workers are indeed wondering about the follow-up to be given to the movement. Gathered in a general meeting on Tuesday at the Gare de Lyon, they drew up an inventory and tried to consider what to do next. The threat of a renewable strike from mid-February, agitated by the CGT and SUD-Rail in the event of the government’s refusal to withdraw its pension reform project, seems in any case to be moving away.
“I don’t feel the guys are ready to embark on a renewable strike at the moment”, explains to AFP Thierry Milbeo, CGT-Cheminots activist and driver of Transilien in Montargis (Loiret). Finally little affected by the reform, which does not affect the pivotal age of railway workers, the latter are reluctant to embark on a hard movement alone, if the other sectors do not follow.
Thierry Milbeo does not want to “strike by proxy”. “We’ve been mobilizing for 30 years and we’ve always lost, except in 1995. At one point, we’re tired of going on strike for others, if it doesn’t move more elsewhere, I think we won’t won’t leave,” he said.