It is "an extremely important meeting", declared on Friday on franceinfo the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, calling "everyone to go to the demonstrations".

CFDT general secretary Laurent Berger (2eG), CGT general secretary Philippe Martinez (C) and FO leader Frederic Souillot (D) demonstrate against pension reform in Paris on February 7, 2023 © JULIEN DE ROSA /AFP

This is the first time since the start of the movement that the unions have organized demonstrations on Saturdays, to allow all those who cannot go on strike to speak out against the reform.

So Juliette Achigar, 47, payroll manager who will demonstrate in Bayonne: "I hesitated to go there on Tuesday, but I lost a day of work and financially it was not manageable", she explained at AFP.

"To exceed the million demonstrators would be a great success," said Mr. Berger.

According to police sources, a participation of between 600,000 and 800,000 people is expected, including 90,000 to 120,000 in Paris, where the parade will go from Republic to Nation.

10,000 police forces will be mobilized throughout France, including 4,500 in Paris.

Without a call to strike, the RATP and SNCF networks should operate normally, allowing everyone to come and demonstrate... or go on vacation, the unions said.

The first three days of action brought together between 757,000 and 1.27 million people according to the authorities (between "nearly two million" and "more than 2.5 million" according to the inter-union), without influencing the executive, who holds firm on the flagship measure of the reform, the decline in the legal age of departure to 64 years.

"I'm not here to have moods," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told Le Parisien.

Demonstrators hold up signs during a demonstration against pension reform in Paris, February 7, 2023 © JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

From Brussels, where he was taking part in a European summit, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron seemed to look elsewhere on Thursday: "I first wish that the work can continue in Parliament", "this is how democracy must work “, he said, before inviting the unions to organize the protest “calmly” and without “blocking the life of the rest of the country”.

"Not on the Street"

"This battle is not played in the street, it is played in Parliament", analyzed this week a Renaissance deputy.

"We have had the strongest mobilizations since the beginning of the 1990s (...) and we have the feeling, including sometimes in interviews (...) with members of the government, that all that does not exist", s' Mr. Berger is offended, pointing to a form of "contempt".

The risk, underline the reformist unions, is that of a radicalization of the base, and also of a form of "social despair" which results in a vote for the far right at the ballot box.

"When millions of people are in the street and we hear the small sentences (...) of the President of the Republic, inevitably we say to ourselves that we will have to think about doing something else", affirmed the secretary general of the CGT Philippe Martinez on Friday on Europe 1.

New days of action are scheduled for February 16, for the second week of examination of the government bill in Parliament, and March 7, when the text will have arrived in the Senate.

Solidaires plans to "carry out the renewable strike from Wednesday March 8", by relying on certain sectors: energy, railway workers.

In the rail, the CGT-Cheminots is already calling for a renewable strike from March 7

The unions will present their battle plan at a press conference on Saturday.

Will article 7, which bears the age measurement, be subject to a vote?

Nothing is less certain, while the deputies of the Nupes tabled thousands of amendments, debated in a tumultuous atmosphere which went up a notch again on Friday with the exclusion for 15 days of the rebellious deputy Thomas Portes for a controversial tweet, showing him, his foot resting on a ball bearing the image of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.

"We have to go to the debate on article 7", wished Mr. Berger, for whom "it would also be good for Parliament to become something other than a fairground".

© 2023 AFP