Vaujany (France) (AFP)

The roar fills the air and then withers between the mountains of the Grandes Rousses: the warning horn of the EDF hydroelectric dam of Grand'Maison (Isère), the most powerful in France, rings on Wednesday to defend the current system of retirement.

"Usually, it is triggered when there is a concern, to warn the population. There, the concern is the attack on the PAYG pension system and on the public service", explains Stéphane Bon-Mardion, from EDF Savoie Technolac's hydraulic engineering center to support the picket line.

Since Tuesday, this power station, which represents 9% of the hydraulic fleet operated by EDF in the country, has been shutdown. With occasional restarts to ensure network security.

A general assembly on the site, led by the CGT, majority, renews every morning the blocking, the objective being at least to hold until Friday, day of presentation of the text of reform in the Council of Ministers and national interprofessional mobilization, according to the strikers.

"We have been on strike since December 5. We are reinventing ourselves with new forms of action", explains Soraya Lucatelli, of the federal executive committee CGT Mines Energies, also mounted in Vaujany.

No question of "putting users in the dark", especially in winter. But by lowering the power injected into the network, "it has an impact on the economy, industrialists and we hope that this autistic government will finally hear us," added the union member.

"We act with the means we have when pseudo-negotiation does not take place. The government does not listen to us and yet, proposals, we have them!", Assures Ms. Lucatelli.

Near the brazier, between the banner "EDF on strike" and the stock of pallets to burn, it is mainly EDF agents from other sites who speak.

- "excess cash" -

Christelle Peybernès, dams and gallery specialist, "can go on strike": "by my status and my salary, I have no problem at the end of the month, so I fight so that everyone has the same chance as me" .

In her entourage, she counts peasants and market gardeners "who cannot lose a day's work" and to whom the "government makes believe to a guaranteed minimum at 1.000 euros. But it is under conditions, it is misinformation "

Beyond the pensions, the strikers also speak of the government's plan to privatize the management of the dams which reach the end of their concession in 2020.

The name of Marcel Paul, trade unionist, communist, resistant and founder of EDF in 1946, is invoked, he who instituted tariff equalization, ensuring the same price for each user regardless of where he lives in the territory.

This "brilliant idea" would be undermined if hydroelectricity is sold to private operators, assures Mr. Bon-Mardion. "What will prevent them from speculating?" Adds Lionel Chanut, CGT delegate EDF Production Hydro Alpes. "They will want to make excess cash and for a 30-year concession, the temptation will be not to maintain the structures," continues Mr. Bon-Mardion.

The dams and factories are the pride of agents, especially in a site like Grand'Maison, "capable of putting into the network the equivalent of a nuclear power plant in a few minutes", with its 1,800 megawatts of peak power, according to Mr. Chanut.

The site is a pumped energy transfer station (STEP): the upstream reservoir is regularly replenished with water from the downstream dam to be able to supply the turbines at any time.

"We are entering the most critical days of consumption with the cold: this is where hydraulics take all its meaning", underlines Mr. Chanut, who prides himself on "this obligation of public service".

© 2020 AFP