The inter-union projects itself on the next day of action, calling "to demonstrate even more massively on Saturday" next.

"The government must withdraw its project without waiting for the end of the parliamentary process," she said.

The deputies will continue to look, Wednesday, at the gradual end of the main special regimes (RATP, electricity and gas industries, Banque de France, etc.).

Only those of the fishermen, the Paris Opera, and the Comédie-Française are spared in the government bill.

But how will the majority and the opposition behave in the hemicycle when the third day of mobilization was less followed than the previous two?

"There is a social mobilization that we watch, that we listen to and which is obviously important at this time when in Parliament also another legitimacy is expressed", noted Wednesday the Minister Delegate for Relations with Parliament Franck Riester on franceinfo, recognizing "a difficult reform" which "requires efforts from the French".

Tuesday, 757,000 people demonstrated in France according to the Ministry of the Interior, nearly two million according to the CGT and the inter-union.

Less than the first two days of action on January 19 and 31.

SNCF, RATP, EDF, teachers: the strikers were also less numerous to mobilize.

"The results of the week, we will do it on Saturday evening", delayed Simon Duteil (Solidaires).

"The parliamentary debate is until the end of March (...) We are not going to burn all our cartridges now", added the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger.

“Renewable strike”?

While the executive remains intransigent on the postponement of the starting age from 62 to 64, the social movement could harden.

Some tensions marred the Parisian demonstration on Tuesday, with several windows broken or damaged and projectiles thrown at the police.

The police headquarters announced 17 arrests at 6:00 p.m.

CGT leader Philippe Martinez called for "harder, more massive, more numerous" strikes, "if the government persists in not listening".

"It will take other demonstrations but for us, it's clear, the rest will be the renewable strike, around March 8", added Simon Duteil.

In the meantime, further disruptions are to be expected on Wednesday on the TGV, TER, Transilien and Intercités networks, two railway unions – CGT-Cheminots and SUD-Rail – having again called for work to be stopped.

The TotalEnergies strikers also renewed the strike.

Anxious not to make their action unpopular, the railway workers' federations did not, however, call for a strike on Saturday, the first day of vacation for zone B and half-time for those in zone A.

The Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt on February 7, 2023 at the National Assembly in Paris © Ludovic MARIN / AFP

For its part, the executive is still trying to wrest a compromise with the right, whose votes are crucial to avoid having recourse to article 49.3 of the Constitution (adoption of a text without a vote).

After the concessions granted on small pensions, then long careers, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt spoke of a "progress report" in Parliament before the presidential election of 2027. He said he was "still optimistic" about the fact of "build a majority".

"The reform is necessary to preserve the social model", insisted the president of the Senate Gérard Larcher Wednesday on France Inter, anxious to encourage the still recalcitrant LR deputies to vote for it.

The executive remains intransigent on the 64-year-old.

"It is an" essential reform, "reaffirmed Mr. Riester on Wednesday.

"We want this reform to be withdrawn," reacted on France 2 Marine Le Pen, president of the RN group in the Assembly on Wednesday.

The French "are facing major difficulties that the government seems to deny since they spend their lives going to the sets to say that everything is fine, that the economy is flourishing".

"You can't govern for very long against your own country," warned Olivier Faure (PS) on Tuesday as the popularity of Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne fell further in the polls.

As for the leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he called on the President of the Republic to become "reasonable".

The government has set a deadline of February 17 for the examination of the text at the Palais Bourbon, before its transmission to the Senate.

© 2023 AFP