Calling on everyone to "throw all their strength into the battle" against the pension reform, the leader of the France Insoumise ironically commented on those who "gargle about the violence" supposed to be of the demonstrations: "There is no violence in the movement we are experiencing and that there are four or five bins burning here or there is nothing compared to what we have seen in the past."
Reaffirming that what could above all "poison" the government is "a people intensely mobilized and frankly radicalized in its opposition to the reform of retirement at 64", Mr. Mélenchon called on the demonstrators "to continue to control the forms of their action".
At the same time the leader Insoumise denounced a head of State and a government who would like to set up "a conditional and conditioned rule of law".
"We cannot live in a country where we have the freedom to participate in rallies unless there is a preventive arrest, in a country where the right to strike applies unless the prefect decides to requisition", as was done, for example, by the Bouches-du-Rhône police prefecture at the Fos-sur-Mer oil depot, near Marseille.
A certainty for Mr. Mélenchon: "The so-called exhaustion of the movement will not take place, (...) People will not give in, even if you speak to them with such arrogance, they will not lower their noses."
"This is called popular censorship," he concluded his speech on the Old Port, before the start of the demonstration, referring to the motion of censure narrowly rejected Monday in the National Assembly, by nine votes.
In Marseille, transport is disrupted and one of the sites of the University of Aix-Marseille, near the Saint-Charles train station is blocked by students. A full procession began to start, according to an AFP journalist. On the dome of La Major Cathedral, near the sea, a banner was affixed: "general strike".
Mr. Mélenchon announced that he will speak again in the evening, after the meeting of the inter-union.
© 2023 AFP