The challenge to the pension reform continues on Thursday, February 6, with an interprofessional demonstration - the 9th since December 5 - organized in several cities in France.

In Montpellier, Nice, Béziers and Sète, the demonstrators began in the morning to demand the "withdrawal of an unfair and dangerous project", at the call of the CGT, FO, Solidaires, the FSU and organizations of youth - Unef, MNL, UNL. They were 4,500 in Marseille and 3,500 in Toulouse, according to prefectural sources, the CGT counting for its part 35,000 demonstrators in the "pink city".

In Bordeaux, opponents of the government bill have erected a "wall of contempt" to denounce the policy of the executive and police repression. Made of concrete blocks, the barricade blocked the main entrance to the rectorate. "It is the wall of contempt, because there has been no response from our ministry for several months, several weeks", on the reform of the bac and pensions, said AFP Jean-Pascal Meral, of the Snes-FSU teachers' union.

In Nice, around fifty firefighters, on strike since June, lay down on the rails of the tram, blocked for 24 hours like most buses. "Even if we are few, we will remain," says Benjamin Vuolo, 52, elected from the autonomous firefighters' union and very upset against the reform which postpones their retirement age from 57 to 59.

Request for a referendum on pensions

Before joining the Paris procession, the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, came to support the striking workers of the Saint-Ouen waste incinerator. "This mobilization serves to show deputies that work is not something unreal, you have to come and see it on the spot," he explained on BFMTV.

Work on the pension reform started this week in the special committee of the National Assembly, which is to examine more than 20,000 amendments, including 19,000 from LFI deputies.

The leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on Thursday asked Emmanuel Macron to organize a referendum on the subject. "If he wants this reform at all costs because he thinks it is good for the country, then he finds that people do not want it, while he is organizing a referendum for example," he said on France 2.

The CFDT, in favor of a "universal" point system, lobbied deputies to improve the texts and worked in this direction on amendments, as did the CFTC and Unsa.

The CFE-CGC, opposed to the reform, also tabled 22 amendments, when FO wrote to parliamentarians so that they "did not approve" the bill.

"Dead ports" operation

In the street, actions continued this week, organized in particular by officials: scientific police, garbage collectors, sewer workers ...

The lawyers, on strike for a month, were received a second time this week by the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, and will decide on the continuation of the movement on Friday.

The Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, said Thursday that there would not be, until 2029, "increase in contribution" retirement for the profession. The project plans to double retirement contributions (from 14 to 28%) for lawyers earning less than 40,000 euros per year. As for pensions, currently at least 1,400 euros net, they would drop to 1,000 euros, according to the National Council of Bars.

On the strike side, several sectors have taken over from transport, where traffic is "normal" to RATP and with "little disruption" to SNCF. In the maritime sector, the CGT is organizing a "dead ports" operation. These actions, which have been recurring for several weeks in the major French ports, have generally been very popular.

Disturbances in Île-de-France, Marseille and Guadeloupe

In the waste sector, the employees of the three incineration sites in Ile-de-France have renewed their movement until Friday. The prefecture requisitioned staff to manage the garbage stocks and restart one of the ovens at Issy-les-Moulineaux.

The Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolitan area announced on Wednesday evening that it would launch a requisition procedure for its striking agents on Thursday, to evacuate the 3,000 tonnes of overdue waste in the streets.

In Guadeloupe, the social movement against the reform, combined with demands against the drop in teaching staff, has blocked a very large part of the schools, colleges and high schools since December 5.

During the eighth call for an interprofessional day on January 30, the mobilization had marked time, with 108,000 demonstrators in France (Ministry of the Interior), against 249,000 the previous day, January 24. The continuation of the movement must be decided at a meeting at the headquarters of the CGT at the end of the day.

With AFP

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