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Wagons from the sky train on a bridge near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on the eve of a strike by all RATP unions against pension reform projects. REUTERS / Christian Hartmann

Public transport will be almost stopped in Paris and the suburbs on Friday 13 September. It's been twelve years since the capital had not seen a movement of such magnitude: ten lines of metro simply closed, the others run on a dropper, an average of three buses on average and very few commuter trains . RATP employees are on strike against pension reform in general, and to safeguard their specific benefits.

The government wants to create a universal system , to replace the 42 systems that currently co-exist. What the RATP employees fear, and they are not the only ones, is that the benefits they have today are disappearing.

Some employees who work underground, for example, if they have contributed long enough, can leave at age 52. For others, it is 57. This special regime has already been damaged by previous reforms, it must gradually align with the general system, but the employees of the RATP fear that the future text will go even further. far. Even if the government promises that it will take into account the specificities and the difficulty of the various trades. The employees of the RATP do not believe in this speech, so they decided to take action.

Employees take action very early

RATP employees do not believe in the government's speech. They therefore decided to take action, at the call of the three representative unions of the Paris transport authority: Unsa, the CGT and the CFE-CGC. It is true that they are the first to draw, and their strike has surprised everyone.

This pension reform is long overdue, consultations began a year and a half ago, and the final bill will be presented to the Assembly by next summer. That leaves another nine months for the government, the employers, and the unions to discuss.

Unions across all sectors have already voiced their concerns and, for some, programmed protests. With this first strike, a " first warning shot ", the employees of the RATP want to go faster, stronger, to weigh already on the discussions.

" The straw that breaks the camel "

Bertrand Hammache is CGT Secretary General of RATP, he explains the extent of the mobilization of employees of the public company.

" It's almost a straw that breaks the camel's back at the RATP. RATP is a company that is in good health but is working on a transformation. The direction we currently have, it is mission to transform this RATP to a business, I would say, classic with the issue of opening to competition bus lines in 2025. So a subsidiary. So subsidiaries, whole bus centers that will become subsidiaries of private law and not public. So workers who are in subsidiaries while at the RATP but out of status. The pressure on the employees, the future which as it is not very engaging, in any case anxiety for the workers, makes this pension reform it adds more. And then there is the phenomenon, of course, of the construction of the mobilization, of the union unity, which also reassures the employees, that we are not in the division, that we are really in the rally. and that the motto is that we are against this reform and against the regime in point. So there we come to an overflow among the workers at the RATP that they are present and that in absolute fear has changed sides. "