"Pensions: it's not over," the eight main French unions and five organizations responded in a statement.

While the Constitutional Council has censored "six articles of the law", the text is "now even more unbalanced", she laments. She therefore asks Emmanuel Macron "not to promulgate the law, the only way to calm the anger expressed in the country".

"Mr. President of the Republic, do not promulgate this law this weekend," insisted the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger on TF1 Friday evening.

Invited by the President of the Republic to meet him at the Elysée Palace on Tuesday, the trade unions say that they "will not enter (...) not in a political agenda that would require an urgent appointment and whose agenda would not be the withdrawal of the reform", and let it be known that they "decide by May 1st not to accept meetings with the executive".

As it had already mentioned Thursday, during the twelfth day of mobilization against the reform, the inter-union calls on employees to make Monday, May 1 a "day of exceptional and popular mobilization against the pension reform and for social justice".

The president of the LFI group in the Assembly Mathilde Panot (r), LFI deputy Eric Coquerel and EELV deputy Sandrine Rousseau, on April 14, 2023 in Paris © Ludovic MARIN / AFP

"All the trade unions are meeting on May 1 to all French people for a popular and historic tidal wave," said CGT general secretary Sophie Binet, amid protesters gathered at the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville in Paris.

His counterpart of Force ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot, considered that the decision of the Constitutional Council does not "upset the calendar of the inter-union" which "will continue to ask for the withdrawal by the mobilization and by a united inter-union".

Demonstration in front of the Paris City Hall after the decision of the Constitutional Council to validate the essence of the pension reform, April 14, 2023 © Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP

In the early evening, more than 4,000 people gathered on the forecourt of the City Hall located not far from the Constitutional Council, some of whom determined to join the rue de Montpensier despite a dissuasive police device. They greeted the Constitutional Council's decision with boos.

"Institutional straightjacket"

Former Yellow Vest figure Jérôme Rodrigues called for "adopting the Yellow Vests scheme" and "getting out of the institutional straightjacket".

Earlier in the week, the trade unions had warned against the risks of radicalization of the social movement, in the event that the postponement of the age would be validated, but not the RIP, a possible democratic outlet.

But mobilization could now take other forms. "Big days of action" like the twelve who chanted the social movement "it will become complicated," conceded the general secretary of the FSU, Benoît Teste. "We will have a mobilization of lesser intensity", with "more spaced mobilizations", he predicted. On Friday evening, Sophie Binet evoked the organization of "a lot of actions" for Thursday.

The new period that is opening is likely to test the solidity of the inter-union, with reformist unions perhaps more inclined to leave the social movement and resume dialogue with the government, even after a period of "decency".

"I have always said that we will not want to end up with 200,000 people in the streets while we have made a historic mobilization but also ultra dignified," said Thursday Laurent Berger, at the start of the Paris demonstration.

Demonstration against the pension reform, April 14, 2023 in Le Mans © JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP

The opportunity for him to pay tribute again to the inter-union, to "this ability despite our differences to make a social movement that will mark the social history of this country".

The inter-union has planned to meet on Monday evening at the headquarters of FO.

© 2023 AFP