Pensions: 440,000 demonstrators according to the Ministry of the Interior, 1.3 million according to the CGT

Europe 1 with AFP 10:06 p.m., February 16, 2023

With fewer but still determined demonstrators, the unions mobilized for the fifth time on Thursday against the pension reform project, wishing to maintain pressure on deputies who no longer have much hope of being able to debate the legal age. before Friday midnight.

"There is uncertainty, it's 'are we going to vote for this reform?'", noted on RTL in the evening the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.

“We discuss everything and just about anything, except reform,” he lamented.

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- Pension reform: what to remember from the fifth day of mobilization

In the middle of school holidays, with the exception of Ile-de-France and Occitania, the mobilization appeared to be on the decline, the unions projecting themselves towards March 7, where they promised to "put France on the line". 'stop".

The CGT claimed 1.3 million demonstrators, the lowest figure since the start of the mobilization on January 19.

The Ministry of the Interior has estimated the number of demonstrators throughout the territory at 440,000 (against 963,000 during the previous mobilization, February 11, which was a Saturday). 

Union officials leave Paris for Albi

The leaders of the eight main French unions had decided to demonstrate in Albi to "bring the spotlight" on this France of very mobilized medium-sized cities, according to the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger.

"The discontent, the determination and the combativeness are intact", he assured before the start of the demonstration, which brought together 10,000 people according to the prefecture and 50,000 according to the unions - as much as the number of inhabitants of this city. .

"Elected officials cannot be indifferent when there are so many people in the street," said his CGT counterpart, Philippe Martinez.

In most cities, the ranks were more sparse than for the 4th day of mobilization on Saturday, as in Toulouse, where the police counted 14,000 people (against 25,000 on Saturday) or Lille, where they were 3,500, against 10,700 on Saturday.

The Paris procession brought together 300,000 people according to the CGT, 37,000 according to the prefecture, and 33,000 according to the cabinet Occurrence.

Among them, Estelle Hue Le Cloître, 47, an SNCF employee, said she put "a lot of hope" on March 7.

"Maintain the breath"

"The idea today is not to make numbers, but to maintain the breath", said the number 2 of the CFDT, Marylise Léon.

Disruptions remained limited in transport.

However, flights were canceled and EDF agents lowered electricity production, without causing power cuts.

In education, the rate of strikers was lower than on February 7th.

Failing to influence the executive, the inter-union sent a letter to parliamentarians, apart from those of the RN, to ask them to reject the reform "and more particularly its article 7", which brings the decline in the legal age of departure from 62 to 64 years.