Paris (AFP)
Consultations in Matignon and meeting at the Elysee, standoff in the press: the executive is working to save his pension reform, threatened by a social movement that will virtually paralyze Paris transport Sunday and fears a shambles on wharves Monday.
The Journal du Dimanche organizes the confrontation between President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and their main opponent on this issue, General Secretary of the CGT Philippe Martinez, boosted by the massive mobilization of December 5 which has brought down more than 800,000 protesters in the street.
"If we do not make a deep reform, serious, progressive today, someone else will make a brutal tomorrow, really brutal," warns in remarks to the JDD the head of government, "determined" to lead " until its completion "the project of universal pension system by points.
"We will keep until the withdrawal" of the reform, in which "there is nothing good", replies in a long interview with the Sunday newspaper the chief culprit, while a second big day of strikes and demonstrations is envisaged Tuesday at the call of the inter-union CGT-FO-Solidaires-FSU and four youth organizations. Some voices, CGT, already evoke a third round next Thursday.
In an attempt to get out of the rut, the executive's schedule is accelerating.
All weekends, consultations take place in Matignon. On Sunday evening, Emmanuel Macron and Edouard Philippe will gather at the Elysee the ministers concerned by the file. On Monday, along with Minister of Solidarities Agnès Buzyn, High Commissioner Jean-Paul Delevoye will present to the social partners the conclusions of his long consultation. Finally, on Wednesday, Edouard Philippe will detail his plan to merge the 42 existing pension plans.
"We can provide extremely positive answers for many people who suffer injustices in the current system: women, farmers, and those with hacked routes in particular," he says.
This reform, "we need to explain it again" and its presentation by the Prime Minister on Wednesday "will allow everyone to position themselves," said Franceinfo Secretary of State for Ecological Transition, Emmanuelle Wargon.
But will there be anything to extinguish the fire? Nothing is less certain, given the response made by Philippe Martinez to the hypothesis of a transition over ten or fifteen years between the current regimes and the future system: "It will be no".
"I do not want our grandchildren to tell us: + you were able to go to such an age, but in return, you sacrificed my retirement +," he argues.
- "Brutality" -
The mobilization is already in the long term. New parades were held on Saturday, coagulating anger: marches against unemployment and precariousness planned for a long time have gathered according to the Ministry of the Interior 23,500 people in France, including "yellow vests" and union activists mobilized on retirees.
The first three railway workers' unions (CGT, Unsa and SUD) called for the strike to be extended from Monday.
And if the government announced Wednesday the maintenance of the special regime of railway workers? "We are not naive (...) We do not believe that we will be excluded from this process," said the secretary general of CGT-Cheminots. "We have already been hit in 2003, when we were told + do not worry, you are not affected by the reform of the civil service system +, and four years later, we were entitled", indicated Laurent Brun on BFMTV.
Meanwhile, traffic will remain heavily reduced Sunday at the SNCF, with 1 TGV on 6, 15% of Transiliens (RER SNCF and suburban trains) and 2 TER out of 10 (thanks to buses) in circulation. RATP will even close 14 out of 16 metro lines.
And Monday looks catastrophic in the stations and stations of the Paris region. The SNCF recommended users to avoid Transiliens, fearing a "very dangerous" affluence in the stations of Ile-de-France. Even the alarming tone at the RATP invites "all travelers who have the opportunity to postpone their travel", given the "high risk of saturation of the network" with including 10 closed metro lines.
In the capital, the prefect of police has again taken a decree obliging to close the businesses located on the route of Paris procession Tuesday, between the Invalides and the Denfert-Rochereau square.
Trade and tourism professionals are worried about the consequences of a potentially sustainable social movement.
And oppositions of right and left are in ambush.
Martine Aubry denounced the "brutality" of government reforms. Mayor PS Lille, former Minister of Labor, considers that they affect the "social pact that binds the French".
© 2019 AFP