It’s a cold shower for the French: the social mobilization of the last few months has not made it possible to make the executive flinch on the thorny question of pension reform. Despite months of demonstrations and heated dialogues with the opposition, the government of Elisabeth Borne has remained inflexible: the pension reform will indeed be implemented from September 1. In a context that remains tense, what is the new plan of the inter-union?
Many French people hoped to finally see the pension reform repealed thanks to the bill made by the Liot group. However, while a large part of the deputies were rather favorable to its examination, their day of parliamentary niche did not go as planned and ended in failure. For the time being, no more democratic possibility remains to be explored, so that future retirees have now immersed themselves in the study of their pension rights.
On the side of the unions, it is the refusal to give up that dominates, despite the failure and lack of understanding of the highest authorities. The eight main French unions and five youth organizations have already explained that there will be no new mobilizations against the pension reform for the moment. This Thursday, June 15, in the evening, during a meeting, they planned, as reported by our colleagues from L’Actu, to meet “from the start of the school year” in order to “identify common demands”. A way not to bend under the upcoming deadline.
While the day of mobilization on June 6 could well have been the last, the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, himself announced that we were heading towards “the end of the match” on the question of the reform retirements. He therefore did not consider that an additional day of demonstrations would be adequate in the current context.
In a press release, the main unions have therefore recognized that “the inter-union and the demonstrators have not succeeded in making the government roll back the passage of the retirement age from 62 to 64 years”. In the same text, they claimed not to turn the page in the face of a reform still considered “unfair and brutal”.
The intersyndicale did not hesitate to express itself on new battles to be waged. It is indicated that she will be able to “mobilize in the coming months to claim social progress and to confront the policies of social regression at the national level”. She also plans to meet again “from the start of the school year” and now wishes to work to “identify common demands”.
At the heart of the problem, it is now the issues of wages, pensions, working conditions, but also occupational health and gender equality, which will be on the table. The organizations did not fail to specify that “the experience of the past 10 months [had] demonstrated that unity […] made it possible to build the balance of power”.
