• France Macron insists pension reform will come into force before the end of the year: 'It's not a luxury, it's a necessity'

France celebrates this Thursday a new day of general strike against the pension reform of Emmanuel Macron. It is the ninth, but there is a difference between this and the previous eight: the street is much more inflamed and has been heating up since last Thursday, when Macron decided to approve the unpopular law by decree, without a parliamentary vote, despite having the country against him. His intervention yesterday on television assuring that he will not withdraw the project, has been the punchline.

Macron speaks; The street responds. If pension reform was the mother of all reforms, today's is the mother of all strikes. Major French cities hold protests. In Paris, unions have estimated about 800,000 demonstrators (there is no official figure yet), which would be a record figure. The protest, which began at 14:00 p.m. in the Place de la Bastille and will end at the Place de la Operarue Garnier, takes place amid a lot of tension, with clashes between radicals and agents.

There are blockades in key sectors, such as transport. A group of demonstrators blocked access to Terminal 1 of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport this morning, while 20% of flights were cancelled at Paris-Orly. Civil Aviation has also asked to cancel for Friday.

In both aerodromes the fuel reserves are at the limit, due to the strike in some refineries of the country. This shortage already affects 15% of service stations. In the Parisian Gare de Lyon, some demonstrators with CGT signs stormed the tracks, and there are problems in the metro, regional lines and in the suburbs, with 25% support for the strike in the French railway company, the SNCF.

For this day, Interior has mobilized 12,000 police and gendarmes, about 5,000 to Paris, a device similar to that deployed during the World Cup final, which pitted France against Argentina.

Since last Thursday, when the pension reform was approved by decree, protests have been repeated daily throughout the country, spontaneous and unauthorized demonstrations that have ended with burning of containers, barricades, police charges and clashes between agents and demonstrators, especially in Paris.

In the last week the ghost of the yellow vests, the protest movement that marked Macron's first term, has been resurrected. Today's mobilization, called by the unions, will serve as a thermometer to evaluate whether the anger is growing and we are witnessing a similar revolt or, on the contrary, the mobilization loses intensity.

While the street keeps its pulse, the government accuses the radical left of La France Insoumise, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of encouraging overflows. It denounces the excessive violence in police charges in recent days. In Marseille, 280,000 people demonstrated, compared to 160,000 the previous day, on March 15, according to the unions. The marches are repeated in the main cities of the country.

Macron addressed the French on Wednesday in a television interview to ensure that the reform, which is opposed by seven out of 10 and which aims to delay the retirement age from the current 62 to 64, will go ahead. It makes itpossible to have overcome on Monday two motions of censure, one of them by only nine votes, which sought to overthrow the project and the Government.

Without a majority in the Assembly, the president decided last Thursday to resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution that allows a law to be approved without going through the vote of the deputies. Unions and opposition accuse him of having imposed his law by force, despite having the country against him. The unions, united for the first time in decades against this reform, have said they will continue with the mobilizations. To the blockades is added 24% of strikers in the national education and in Paris the strike of garbage dumps is already in its third week, with 10,000 tons of garbage scattered throughout the capital.

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  • Paris
  • France
  • Emmanuel Macron
  • Yellow vests
  • Europe
  • Articles Raquel Villaécija