Paris (AFP)
The tone mounts between the main players in the protest against the government's pension reform project Sunday, the eleventh day of a strike in transport, the day before a day of demonstrations called by all unions .
On Sunday, the situation was still very disrupted in transport, and the substantive debate on pensions was parasitized by the questioning of the High Commissioner for Pensions Jean-Paul Delevoye.
Weakened by suspicions of conflicts of interest after omissions in his declaration of interests, the latter rectified this document on Saturday and declared 13 terms, including 11 volunteers, according to Le Monde.
He received the support of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, removing the uncertainty that hovered over a possible resignation.
More and more worried about not seeing enough trains running at Christmas, the head of government severely criticized in the Parisien on Sunday the strikers, who are causing very significant disruption in transport.
"Christmas is an important time. Everyone will have to take responsibility. I don't think the French would accept that some people could deprive them of this moment," he said.
"Who can understand that during the Christmas holidays, to try to be heard, we will block those who want to spend these family moments? Me, this idea is unbearable to me, I think like (for) a lot of French people" , added Sunday on Franceinfo the Minister of Housing Julien Denormandie.
The striking railway workers have already announced that they do not envisage a "truce" for the holiday season. "If the government wants the conflict to end before the holidays, it has all the next week to make the necessary common sense decision: the withdrawal of the reform by points," Laurent Brun told AFP on Saturday. secretary general of CGT-Cheminots (1st).
-"And that's all" -
Public opinion seems to be always in favor of this movement. According to an Ifop poll for the JDD, 54% of French people support the strike (compared to 46% on December 1 before the start of the movement and 53% after the mobilization on December 5), and 30% are hostile to it (the same proportion as the Last week).
Key element in the passage of the reform in opinion, the boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, emerged Sunday from the silence he had observed since his outburst on Wednesday, after the announcement that an age measurement was confirmed in the reform project. The government plans a "balanced age" of 64. This means that everyone can continue to retire at 62, but at the cost of a penalty on their pension, those who leave afterwards benefit on the contrary from a bonus.
"It's very simple: for the CFDT to take another look at this bill, the government must agree to withdraw the age of balance. One point, that's all," declared Mr. Berger in the Journal du Sunday.
He repeats that "it makes no sense" according to him to combine the transformation of the existing 42 pension plans into a universal point system with an age measure whose purpose is to make savings to ensure balance plan financial.
To the point of not ruling out organizing a "meeting in January" to succeed, after Tuesday's demonstration, at the same time as the CGT-FO-Solidaires-FSU intersyndicale which requests the complete withdrawal of the reform.
Meanwhile, Mr. Berger, who says he is concerned that there is "no blockage of transport at Christmas", suggests that he accepts Matignon's invitation to a new consultation but without specifying a date.
Getting on public transport on Sunday was extremely complicated, with only one TGV out of 4, TER out of three and one out of five commuter trains in circulation at SNCF, and almost all of the RATP metro lines closed (except automatic lines 1 and 14, and Orlyval).
Traffic will continue to be very disrupted Monday with still on average a quarter of TGV and a third of TER, and still many closed metro lines (2, 3a, 5, 6, 7a, 10, 12 and 13) or operating only very partially (3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 11).
The next day, railway workers, students, employees of the public service, health professions, lawyers, magistrates, teachers are expected on the street.
Very mobilized since the beginning of the conflict, the latter obtained on Friday from the government the guarantee of a revaluation of their remuneration, in the amount of approximately 10 billion euros over several years, from January 1, 2021.
© 2019 AFP