"People would have to sign now, so there would be a ripple effect." Françoise, 67, a retired National Education met place of the Republic, Saturday, November 30, in Paris, is persuaded: "We must do something" against the privatization of Aéroports de Paris (ADP), a project which has been envisaged since April by the government - the State is a shareholder of the public service company at 50.6%. The million signatures could soon be exceeded, the Constitutional Council officially registered 969,000 supporters by 20 November.
"Our goal is to reach the million, to exceed this symbolic threshold," said Vincent Gay, a member of Attac's national office, one of 32 organizations that called for the rally. "This would build confidence for the future and remind Macron of its commitment when it said in the big debate that the Shared Initiative Referendum (RIP) should be possible with a million signatures."
The organization of such a referendum currently requires 4.7 million signatures - one tenth of the voters registered on the lists in France - over the Internet over a period of nine months. But Emmanuel Macron said last April, he wanted to see this threshold reduced to one million signatures in the context of the constitutional reform that intends to lead the executive. "It will be to put the democratic word of the president against what he said at the beginning of the year," says Vincent Gay.
For Denis Thomas, national secretary of FSU, the organization of this rally against the privatization of ADP also aims to "rest the question of the future of public services for citizens". And he continues: "We see what is possible behind this privatization. Acceleration, a proliferation of air traffic or the lack of moderation of the carbon footprint. "Françoise believes that" we have privatized highways and now it is said that Vinci hit the jackpot. " And she asks: "Why would we do the same thing with ADP (which recorded record profits in 2018, Ed)?"
"In 2005 there was a referendum and we were not listened to"
After a promising start - more than 480,000 signatures against the privatization of ADP between June 13 and July 1 - the online petition has taken the lead in recent weeks, increasing by only 147,000 supports between September 25 and November 20.
For Françoise, "there is very little talk of the privatization of ADP in the media". A position shared by several promoters of the referendum, such as the Anticor association which denounced as of September a "lack of information".
But is this the only reason? To listen to Francoise, not necessarily: "Too few people have signed. Most people around me know that the petition exists, but many have not yet signed it, and I do not know why, "she says. For Vincent Gay, the "discouragement", "intense militant calendar since the start of the school year" and "the lack of proximity of ADP - a public service that is not close to people like La Poste -" could have played on the morale anti-privatization troops.
"We also realized that it was not as simple as we thought at the beginning of the summer," said activist Attac. "There is not yet the democratic habit for this type of exercise and people are suspicious. Some people say to me 'Look, in 2005 there was a referendum (the draft European constitutional treaty, rejected at 54.67% of the votes, Ed) and we were not listened to'. This can play in relation to the subject on Aéroports de Paris. "
Persistent Problems for Online Petition Enrollment
Add to this the difficulties encountered - from the first days of the opening of the petition - by the signatories to register on the online platform of the Ministry of the Interior. "It's not easy to sign, it took me half an hour to get there and with the help of my son computer scientist," says Françoise.
Denis Thomas also says that "online or in the street with a CERFA document, it takes time to sign the petition". "There is a technical difficulty in getting people to sign," he adds. It is also for this purpose, help people who have trouble registering online, some of the organizers present Saturday are equipped with laptops and an Internet connection at their booth.
Hélène, a voter in the 11th district of Paris, is one of those people in difficulty. This Saturday, she came with her ID card, seeking help to sign the petition "after hearing about this rally on the radio." "I tried two or three times, but it does not work," she says, stopping at a booth. The minutes pass, but Hélène is still not registered. A name problem prevents the correct entry of information on the online form.
It will finally be necessary for Helen to email a scan of her electoral map to the person who tried to help her to complete the registration process. "I said to myself 'that's it, it's going to be done today', well no," she exclaims as she leaves Republic Square.