Throughout France, the demonstrations called by the unions reject the star reform of Emmanuel Macron and his postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years. Some town halls, such as those of Paris or Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), had to keep their doors closed
Cover photo: AP Photo | thibault camus
The representatives of the union organizations assured that this second day of mobilization against the reform of the retirement system in France is even greater than the one held on January 19.
“It is one of the largest demonstrations organized in our country for decades,” declared Laurent Berger, leader of the CFDT union, noting, shortly before the march started in Paris, that there were “more people” in the streets than on 19 January, during the first mobilization.
“In all the comments that come to me, it is more than 19,” said his CGT counterpart, Philippe Martínez, in the same vein, while Frederic Souillot (FO) raised a “flurry.”
Throughout France, the first demonstrations began at 10 in the morning with the same rejection of Emmanuel Macron’s star reform and his postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years.
The first figures, according to the police, were in the same orders of magnitude as those of the 19th, with, for example, 14,000 people in Rouen (compared to 13,000 on the 19th), 12,000 in Le Havre (compared to 11,000) or 28,000 in Nantes (compared to 25,000). Once again, the medium-sized cities seem to be in the lead, with 7,000 demonstrators in Alès (Gard, 35,000 inhabitants) or 8,500 in Angoulême (9,000 on the 19th).
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The strike was very crowded in the transport sector, with metro and RER (suburban train) traffic “very disrupted” in the Paris region. In the national railway company SNCF there were 36.5% of strikers, compared to 46.3% on January 19, according to union sources.
A quarter of the teachers on strike
In the national education system, the Ministry counted at noon a quarter of teachers on strike in primary (preschool and primary) and secondary (secondary and high school) education centers, a figure lower than that of January 19. The SNES-FSU, the main union for secondary education, estimates the number of secondary and high school teachers on strike at 55%.
On Tuesday morning, high school and university students mobilized, such as at the Saint-Charles campus of the University of Aix-Marseille or at the Sciences Po Paris high school.
The CGT announces strikes of 75 to 100% in the refineries and warehouses of TotalEnergies. As for the EDF strikers, they caused load reductions at the power plants of “close to 3,000 MWH” overnight, without causing any outages, however, according to the CGT and EDF.
Some town halls, such as those in Paris or Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), had to keep their doors closed.
For the Government, the battle of opinion “is very compromised”, according to Frederic Dabi, from the Ifop polling institute: “As the French begin to learn about the reform, adherence decreases” in the polls.
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