"I think that we could go in the coming days towards difficult and uncertain times with popular mobilizations in the street, risks of blocking", argued Mr. Bardella during the Grand rendez-vous Europe 1 / Cnews / Les Echos .

"And then there is this majority of refusal which is constituted in the country around these 68% of French people according to the Ifop poll who are opposed to the pension reform. I say when we have this horizon in front of us , then we have to go through a referendum,” he continued.

According to the MEP, the referendum "is a way to put this text up for debate, to come out on top", stressing that Emmanuel Macron "suffered an affront during the legislative elections" at the end of which he did not obtained only a relative majority.

Arguing that there were "1001 ways to oppose the reform", the text of which must be presented Monday in the Council of Ministers, Mr. Bardella indicated that the RN was going to "present a counter-reform" and "above all to carry out opposition to this text in the National Assembly" with the 88 current deputies.

Rather than raising the starting age from 62 to 64, Mr. Bardella mentioned other "tracks", such as "supporting the birth rate", "supporting productivity", "reindustrializing", encouraging "patriotism economic”, or “commit to the long term on the abolition (…) of production taxes”.

Welcoming the "peaceful mobilization" observed during the marches on Thursday and Saturday against the reform, Mr. Bardella however personally ruled out marching alongside the unions who "expressed on several occasions that they did not wish to see the elected representatives of the National Rally in the demos".

"Me it makes me a little uncomfortable all that because in fact demonstrating alongside someone like Mr. Berger (CFDT, editor's note) or Mr. Martinez (CGT, editor's note), who called to vote for Emmanuel Macron (in the second round of the presidential election against Marine Le Pen, editor's note), I would have the feeling of being a Tartuffe", he explained.

Mr. Bardella has in this sense pinned the "deep schizophrenia" of the unions and the left oppositions which "chosen the social executioner of the French people, six months ago" and which "six months later organize parades in the street " .

© 2023 AFP