"Power, we will take it": young people increasingly mobilized against the pension reform

Geoffrey Branger 11:14am, March 25, 2023

Blockades in front of universities, high schools... Young people are increasingly represented in social protest. According to Unef, the leading student organization, 500,000 young people were on the streets on Thursday, a record since the beginning of the demonstrations against the pension reform. Since the use of 49.3 by the government, more and more young people are mobilized. A dynamic that has also been strengthened with the speech of Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.

"It's us who take over and it freaks out Macron"

As a result on Thursday, the day of demonstration, many universities and high schools were blocked everywhere in France. Determined young people who do not fit into a standard mobilization logic. They want concrete and sometimes more radical action than the unions.

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"There, we feel that there is something, we feel that we hold something, we are no longer tidy, we are no longer wise," says Cléo, a student at Paris Assas University. "It's no longer we're going to demonstrate, we are millions and we're going home and waiting for the unions to give us the next date of mobilization. There, it is we who take the upper hand and that, it freaks Macron out and that's why he says that the crowd does not have the legitimacy of the people. If in fact, because the people are us, and the power we will take."

"The challenge of young people is particularly important"

According to Jean-François Amadieu, a specialist in social movements, the mobilization of these young people in the streets and the blockades of universities and high schools could well be decisive for the continuation of the movement.

"Things will quickly become unmanageable for the executive. We know that [the presence of young people] plays a lot because on the side of the refineries, when we see that with requisitions, the crisis can be overcome, in transport, the staff of the SNCF will not necessarily last very long, and it follows moderately in the rest of the public or private sector. So in fact, the issue of young people is particularly important," explains the specialist.

Indeed, if we look at the various social movements that have animated these last decades, we realize that among the battles that have been won by the street, young people were systematically very mobilized.