only 368,000 demonstrators in France this Saturday March 11 according to the Interior
In Toulouse, the demonstrators were more numerous this Saturday 11 than Tuesday March 7 (date of the photo). AFP / LIONEL BONAVENTURE
MAP – The unions failed to mobilize for this second day organized during the weekend. Find city by city the number of demonstrators.
And seven! The unions wanted a massive mobilization this Saturday in order to attack the days to come from a position of strength, at the start of a decisive week, where the government hopes to see the pension reform definitively adopted after a chaotic parliamentary course. The demonstrators were significantly fewer on Saturday, often below the previous minimum of February 16, according to figures from the authorities and unions. A city like Paris thus mobilized less than 50,000 people (48,000 according to the prefecture and 300,000 according to the CGT).
On Tuesday, the unions had shown very strong opposition to the reform project, with a record number of protesters (1.28 million people according to the Ministry of the Interior, more than three million according to the intersyndicale) – without however managing to put the country “offas they had expressed the wish.
LIVE – Pensions: the first demonstrations start this Saturday for the seventh day of mobilization
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But the demonstrators, divided on Saturday between fatalism, anger, and sometimes, hope of making the government back down, are far from filling the processions. Probably the event too many this week. At 6 p.m., the demonstrators numbered 368,000 according to the Ministry of the Interior. At the same time on Saturday February 11, they were 876,000 and 1.13 million on Tuesday March 7.
This March 11 marked the second day of mobilization during the weekend, in order to allow employees to participate without having to ask for a day of strike. On February 11, 963,000 people took to the streets according to the Ministry of the Interior, and more than 2.5 million according to the CGT. A still significant mobilization while two areas were on vacation.
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The government ready to step in
To counter what he denounces as the“ methodical opposition » from the left in the Upper House, the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, was forced to request a single vote on its reform as a whole to give a boost to the debates. What rekindle the anger of the opponents. The upper house has until midnight Sunday to decide, a joint committee bringing together deputies and senators to be held on Wednesday before a final vote in stride in both chambers.
But it seems uncertain that the government will manage to find a majority of deputies to approve the text. And despite the headwinds, Elisabeth Borne still hopes that the reform will succeed without resorting to the ax of 49.3 (law without a vote).
“The use of 49.3 for a bill that has not been discussed would be an unacceptable form of democratic blockage“warned Laurent Berger on Tuesday. The general secretary of the CFDT regretted Friday the refusal of the president of the Republic to meet the unions, as they had made the request to him in a solemn letter Thursday. “When millions of people are in the street (…), when there are strikes and there is nothing opposite, silence, people say to themselves ‘what should be done? more to be heard?’“Lamented, for his part, Friday the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez.
The French still approve of the challenge
There latest wave of the Odoxa-Backbone Consulting study For Le Figaro reveals that, in the event of new deadlocks, the country would hold it more rigorously with the executive than with the inter-union.
“For many months, the government has undoubtedly hoped that the French will eventually get tired of the mobilizations”, points out Gaël Sliman, director of Odoxa. However, in this showdown with the inter-union, opinion polls confirm week after week that the government has already lost the battle for image.
