Saint Nazaire

Following the 8th day of national mobilization against the pension reform, which brought together some 17,000 people in Nantes this Wednesday (March 15), 10,000 in Rennes and Brest, 7,000 in Saint-Nazaire, 6,000 in Lorient and Angers , eyes are now on the parliamentarians, called to vote on the text, since the joint committee has agreed on a compromise text. At the time of the vote, all the union leaders have planned to gather tomorrow Thursday, March 16, in front of the National Assembly.

“We won’t forget anything“

Fabrice Lerestif, general secretary Force Ouvrière in Ille-et-Vilaine, is counting on parliamentarians to measure the stakes of their vote, and not to betray the French: “il they must not imagine that in two or three months, we will have forgotten: neither us nor the workers to whom they will have inflicted two more years before going to retirement, that is to say perhaps two years less on their life expectancy. They have to take their responsibilities, we have a long memory. They are supposed to represent the population: they are going to pass a law against the population, against the workers! Let them assume it! But it will not be necessary after that they come to cry if they are actually going to be shouted at in the street by workers, employees, or retirees who will ask them questions that will bother them! Nothing will be forgotten, and we will publish everyone’s positions and votes because that seems to me to be democratic transparency.”

“You mustn’t let go!”

Even if the text is voted on, the unions want to continue the movement. After all, for Fabrice Lerestif, there are precedents, not so distant: “in 2006, the first employment contract was adopted and we managed to obtain its repeal after three weeks of mobilization. You must not give up. The government is not that strong… In 95, Alain Juppé said “I am inflexible, I will never move! And at the end of the end they moved. I don’t believe in losing battles, and I don’t think it will be over in a fortnight, three weeks, a month… because there, something happened and there is a deep anger that maybe will arise in another way.. I think we can still win!”

The protesters are ready to continue

The Rennes parade brought together between 10,000 and 15,000 people. On the sidelines of the procession, damage was committed: trash cans burned, windows broken. 18 people were arrested by the police. In this procession, some like Sébastien were on their eighth day of mobilization. And despite the impact on the salary, this professional firefighter says he is ready to continue, until the withdrawal of the reform : “if we have to go to ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen, one month, two months, we will go all the way. We have already taken two years in the face with (François) Hollande! At some point, they’ll stop wringing us… We’ll raise our heads and we’ll fight. Me, I have two big children and it is for them that we fight too. We’re already going to leave them a rotten planet if we don’t move our butts, so Stop!”

49.3 is a denial of democracy!

Katia has also been mobilizing since the beginning of the movement: employed at Social Security, she wants to believe in the rejection of the reform by parliamentarians: “a bill will then be submitted to the Senate and the Assembly… and it is the Assembly that will have the last word. Passing this type of bill by a 49.3 is really a denial of democracy. I think that most citizens will remember in the next votes, who went against the voice of the people and who did not … and Mr Macron will have to bear the sole responsibility for the rise of extremes in our country.”

The demonstrators against the pension reform, currently being debated in the Senate, were very numerous this Tuesday again, much more than during the previous days: 150,000 people demonstrated in Brittany, including 14,000 in Vannes, 18,000 in Lorient, or around 20 000 in Brest. In Rennes, they were between 19,000 to 40,000 according to the sources, with at the end of the procession clashes and tear gas launched at Place de Bretagne and Place Sainte-Anne. Eleven people were arrested. In Nantes, the prefecture announces 30,000 people against 75,000 for the unions and there were eight police custody, on the sidelines of the parade. 19,000 other people marched in Angers, 15,000 in Saint-Nazaire and 10,000 others in Laval.

Mobilization also in small towns

A thousand demonstrators were identified in Clisson, a small Italian city in Loire-Atlantique and 2,000 in Ploërmel in Morbihan, a figure on the rise. Some like Nadia expected an even greater mobilization. Aged 40, Nadia is employed in a meat processing factory, and she came to demonstrate with some colleagues:

“I was at work this morning: up at 3 a.m., (I) started at 4 a.m. and left at 7 a.m., but there are not many colleagues who have followed unfortunately. There, we demonstrate, but I find that it is too calm. You have to block outright to push until they react. I challenge him to come with us to work Mr. Macron, that he “put his ass” in the factory and that he tries to see what it is to work on the assembly line. We both work, we have two children and at the end of the month it’s ric-rac, but we both go to work. When we see the poverty wages and there, they push us up to 64 years old: we will kill ourselves at work, we will leave with broken bones, crushed backs … I am disgusted.

It concerns us all!

Young people remained quite rare, in the Morbihan procession, even if we could come across a few high school students and students like Pierre, in law at Rennes 1, who parades in a spirit of solidarity and cohesion: “whether you’re young or on the verge of retirement, it concerns us all. We must be able to count on each other, have a well-funded pension system that allows us to finish our work period with dignity.. We have other means than increasing the retirement age to continue to finance our retirement system. This will put those who toil every day even more in difficulty, while those who profit from the system will remain in their golden square! Two-thirds of French people are opposed to pension reform and we must show it by all means!”

You can’t run a country like a multinational

In the processions, some were also demonstrating for the first time, while others were on their second or third day of “walking”. Still others have not missed a day of action, like Sylvain, met by our reporter Yann Launay, and who hopes that the government, this time, will take the mobilization into account: “when you’re wrong, you have to know how to accept and apologize and don’t let things get out of hand. It is irresponsibility. You cannot run a country like a multinational. We run a country with people who need to be encouraged… (atmosphere)”

“The government remains deaf no matter what”

A few tractors led the way, in the colors of the Confédération paysanne. Farmers as a whole have been discreet since the beginning of the movement, satisfied to have obtained the calculation of their retirement on their 25 best years. But for Thibaut, a farmer in Monteneuf, there is no question of resigning himself to working longer. The 30-year-old says he is ready to mobilize until the reform is withdrawn:

“Every time more and more of us take to the streets, nothing happens… If the government makes no effort for us, there is no reason for the movement to stop. are just people who live completely uncorrelated to our reality. Me, I’m willing to take on the role of a deputy and have them come and take my place, to get up very early every day, to do days that never end and (I would like) to see if they arrive get by with the little money we make at the end of the month.“

The strike will continue this Wednesday at the SCNF and at the Donges refinery (44), and other demonstrations are planned as part of the international day of struggle for women’s rights. The inter-union wants to “denounce the major social injustice of this pension reform against women”.

CGT boss Philippe Martinez threatens to “more massive and renewable strikes” and “the government persists“with the pension reform. SUD-Rail and the CGT Cheminots call for the continuation of the strike this Wednesday, February 8, at the SNCF. On the Atlantic axis, there will be only one out of two TGVs in circulation and on average 1 out of 2 TERs will also be less disrupted in Brittany with 7 out of 10 TGVs and 9 out of 10 TERs. The movement will also continue in refineries, at EDF, at the Post Office and in ports.

An important mobilization, but in decline

This Tuesday, February 7, the mobilization remained important but less than during the two previous days: the CGT announced 2 million demonstrators against 750,000 for the police. In Nantes, 20,000 people according to the authorities and 45,000 according to the unions, in Rennes 25,000 demonstrators against 35,000 last week, and 15,000 according to the prefecture which also announces 13 arrests. 18,000 in Brest, 12,000 in Saint-Nazaire, 9,000 in Vannes, 8,000 in Lorient, around 7,500 in Angers and 3,000 in Cholet.

Yann Launay followed the procession from Lorient in which he met Juliette, 26, who parades with a sign that reads “Let my mother retire” : “With the reform, she will have to work even longer. I think that at some point, when you have worked all your life, you have the right to enjoy other important moments and no longer focus solely on work. I hope that the mobilization will not run out of steam.Today, there are still a lot of people and I hope that this will continue until the withdrawal of the reform. We give too much importance to the economy, not enough to the environment, to the human, and not enough to the precarious.

Muriel: they don’t care up there!

This new Lorient demonstration has remained good-natured, even if some participants do not hide it: their anger is rising. Muriel denounces the government’s stubbornness and indifference to situations like hers. She who sees retirement moving away, while she is on disability and cannot find work: “I live on €700 a month and I’m being asked to wait until I’m 67 to get a pension and no one is hiring us today. What do we have left? We worked for nothing, we raised kids for nothing, they don’t care up there! It’s pissed off to see how they treat us. We do not matter. We really are shit and we’re going to stay in shit for them.”

It is urgent to ask and discuss

The unions hope that the government will stop acting as if the streets were empty: for Loïc Fanouillère, police officer and president of the CFE-CGC Bretagne regional union, it is time for the government to cancel this reform and resume the discussions with social partners: “all those who think that there is an urgent need to reform pensions are liars. There is no urgency to reform, but there is an urgency to sit down and discuss. We cannot have so many citizens in the street without reacting.

We hope that the government will be able to listen to us. For the moment, everything is going peacefully, but it is true that there are behaviors and subliminal messages from the government that are fueling this tension which, for the moment, remains moderate on the ground.… The risk is that there will be branches that become radicalized in the face of quite brutal behavior on the part of this government.”

A new day of demonstration is planned for this Saturday, February 11, but without a strike. There should be no disruptions for holiday departures.