"Resistance!", "We are here, even if Macron does not want it", proclaimed at midday the youth organizations gathered at the head of a still motionless procession.

The organizers do not intend to bring together the million or two million demonstrators - according to estimates by the police or the CGT - who beat the pavement Thursday throughout France.

But Philippe Juraver, head of LFI's "struggle network", "hopes to do better than in October", a reference to the "march against the high cost of living" organized by the mélenchonistes and which had drained 140,000 participants according to the organizers , 30,000 according to the police.

However, doing better is not won.

The movement founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon was more timid in its communication to organize this event, preferring to hide behind ten youth organizations.

"We realized that the young people wanted to put themselves forward, that they felt the first concerned", says Philippe Juraver.

Who admits that LFI was also aware of having to show their credentials to the unions, "offended" that the date was announced before theirs.

Jean-luc, 59-year-old protester, during a rally against pension reform in Toulouse on January 19, 2023 © Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP/Archives

"So in communication, we were very careful, it was only for a few days, after the announcement of the date of the 19th, that we increased communication for the 21st", he explains.

This did not prevent the leader of the CGT Philippe Martinez from pestering on BFMTV: "This is not the time to divide. Given the mobilization of Thursday, everyone understood what is the important date of the week ".

No "competition"

"Our role is to be in support of all mobilizations", cleared Saturday during a press briefing the deputy Louis Boyard, responsible for youth at LFI.

Before getting annoyed: "Can't you see that young people are in enormous precariousness? This is the only subject we want to talk about today."

“It is not at all a question of competition between the mobilizations, it is complementary”, insisted at his side Eléonore Schmitt, spokesperson for the student union L’Alternative.

First thorn in the side, the Unef, the main student union, will not participate, preferring a "united union front to organize the struggle as broadly as possible", justifies Imane Ouelhadj, its president.

And, unlike the "march against the high cost of living", the left alliance Nupes does not support this initiative either, EELV, PCF and PS believing that it is necessary, for pensions, to let the unions do their thing.

But even within political formations, the strategies are different.

"EELV and other parties have decided to wait for the date of the inter-union", but "it was important to mobilize early (and announce it) from December, because young people cannot wait", believes Clovis Daguerre, Young Ecologists.

Young people fear "a reduction in the number of jobs", explains Noémie Stickan, representative of the FIDL high school student union.

And they want more generally "to say stop to this antisocial measure" of the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years.

Rally against pension reform, in Marseille on January 19, 2023 © NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP

"We are revolted, we want to fight it out, we want to say that we will not be the sacrificed generation", proclaimed before the departure of the procession Zoé Lorioux-Chevalier, member of Génération.s.

Alongside the Student Alternative or the Voix Lycéenne, the young movements of the left-wing parties will take the lion's share of the demonstration: the Young Rebellious, the Young Ecologists, the Young Generations, Place Publique Jeunes and the NPA Jeunes.

"Saturday we play: + Hello we are back + behind the youth organizations", wrote Jean-Luc Mélenchon Thursday evening.

The media "want, thinking of dissuading, to make it a + march of political parties + and even as usual a + march of Mélenchon +. We have already seen what it looked like in the recent past: it attracts!"

© 2023 AFP