After the forced passage of the pension reform thanks to article 49.3, the French have hardened their protest between wild demonstrations in the big cities and a new day of very popular mobilization. However, the executive seems frozen in its ideas and does not react to calls from the unions and the opposition. While Emmanuel Macron addressed the French during an interview by affirming clear-cut positions, it seems increasingly difficult to see the government backing down. Explanations.
Since January, the protest has not weakened in France in the face of a controversial pension reform, which has created a more than tense social climate. While the unions, the opposition and the French remain mobilized, the executive has indicated that it will not back down from the current demonstrations. In the Sunday Journal of March 26, Olivier Véran, spokesperson for the government, thus assured that the executive was going to pursue a “rearranged” roadmap without signing “the retirement of the reforms”. Clearly, the government of Elisabeth Borne has every intention of continuing to produce other reforms, capable of succeeding that of pensions.
Still according to Olivier Véran, it is not possible to “let the idea take hold that violence would be a justifiable or understandable reaction”. If the government spokesman mentions the need to renew the dialogue with the unions, he assumes the maintenance of the legal retirement age at 64 years. According to him, however, there are “other [questions] essential for the French, for which we want to work with them”, in particular “the management of career ends or professional retraining”. At the same time, the parliamentary agenda will undergo adaptations in order to “respond to the concerns of the French” such as access to doctors, class closures or even access to identity papers.
