“Resistance!”, “We are here, even if Macron doesn’t want it” shouted the demonstrators, among other things
Thousands of people they demonstrated today in the cold in Paris against the pension reform, responding to the call of youth organizations but also of the party Disobedient France (LFI, radical left opposition).
“Resistance!”, “We are here, even if Macron doesn’t want it”: while a bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is expected to be presented to the cabinet on Monday, a march led by young people, in but which was attended by people of all ages, took place between Bastille Square and Ethnos Square, without any notable incident.
Today’s rally did not have the turnout seen in Thursday’s rally, which drew between one and two million protesters across France, according to estimates by police or the General Confederation of French Workers.
With almost 150,000 protesters, the organizers can boast that they achieved their goal. Other counts, however, are much lower: 12,000 people according to a police source, 14,000 according to the Occurrence office on behalf of a group of media including AFP.
In the crowd, Charlotte Lamorlette, a 30-year-old director, and Chloe Kissipour, a 29-year-old actress, believe that “we are at the beginning of the movement, we need to send a strong message and encourage other people to come.”
Next to her, Zoe Laurieu-Chevalier, member of the Génération.s party. “We want to fight it, we want to say that we will not be the generation that was sacrificed.”
In the crowd, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of Insubordinate France (LFI), addressed Emmanuel Macron: “Damn you, you want to turn our entire existence into a commodity.”
The pension plan and its key measure, raising the retirement age to 64 from the current 62, has run into a united union front and strong public hostility according to opinion polls.
This political test for President Emmanuel Macron comes at a tense economic and social time, with the French suffering the effects of high inflation, at 5.2% on average in 2022.
The government chose to extend working time to deal with the financial deterioration of pension funds and an aging population. She defends her program by presenting it as an “agent of social progress” mainly through increases in small pensions.
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