The French took to the streets this Saturday (11.03.2023) in the seventh day of protests against the unpopular pension reform of President Emmanuel Macron, which the unions ask to “consult the people”.
The unions sought to make clear on Saturday that popular unrest over the reform persists, but the demonstrations were less crowded than on other occasions. According to the CGT, 300,000 people demonstrated in Paris today, 200,000 fewer than the last time protests had been called on Saturdays (February 11).
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For its part, the Ministry of Interior reduced the participation of the day to 48,000 people in the capital and estimated at 368,000 the demonstrators nationwide. This last figure, for the unions, exceeded one million.
Tension over reform peaked this week following Macron’s refusal to meet with unions, prompting “great anger,” according to Philippe Martinez, leader of the CGT union.
“When there are millions of people in the streets, when there are strikes and all we get from the other side is silence, people ask themselves: What else do we have to do to be heard?” he said, calling for a referendum on pension reform.
Two out of three French people, according to polls, oppose the French president’s plan to delay the retirement age from 62 to 64 years by 2030 and to bring forward to 2027 the requirement to contribute 43 years (and not 42 as until now) to collect a full pension.
The rejection took the form of a series of massive protests since 19 January and strikes in transport and the energy sector. But for the moment, these actions did not achieve the withdrawal of the project, which is currently being debated in the Senate (upper house) and must go through the National Assembly (lower house) for a final vote.
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