With a new day of protest and strike on June 6, the French trade unions want to keep up the pressure on the government in Paris. "There will be no return to normality as long as the pension reform is not withdrawn," said the leader of the radical left-wing CGT union, Sophie Binet. The reform is legally binding after approval by the Constitutional Council and by the signature of the President and is due to enter into force on 1 September. The minimum retirement age will be gradually raised from 62 to 64 by 2030.
Michaela Wiegel
Political correspondent based in Paris.
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The date for the new strike day, the 14th since the beginning of the year, was chosen with a view to a parliamentary initiative to be debated by the National Assembly on 8 June. The aim is to hold a vote to repeal the recently adopted pension reform. Behind it is the liberal-bourgeois budget politician Charles de Courson, who had already organized the motion of no confidence against the government of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. Borne won the vote of confidence by a very narrow margin of nine votes. "The country can no longer be run with a government without a majority and with a president who represents a minority," Courson told Europe 1 radio.
"The cause of our evils can be summed up in one name: Macron!" said Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing populist RN group, at her party's traditional May 1 meeting in Le Havre. She will be a president of "social peace". The failed presidential candidate of the left-wing LFI party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called for the overthrow of the "bad republic". The constitution is "authoritarian" and "anti-workers."
Radical trade unionists against any talks
The loose alliance of the main trade unions, the so-called Intersyndicale, spoke out on Tuesday in favour of starting talks with Prime Minister Borne. They would "reaffirm their opposition to the pension reform," the joint communiqué said. Meanwhile, they wanted to work with the government on "joint proposals" on wages, working conditions, social democracy and equality between women and men. At first, it looked as if the united front of the trade unions could break up. The particularly radical part of the CGT rejected talks with the government. The outgoing general secretary of the more moderate CFDT union, Laurent Berger, warned against a refusal. "The CFDT is not in favour of driving workers against the wall by making them believe that the president can withdraw the reform," Berger said on LCI television.
Demonstrations on May 1 in Paris, Nantes and Lyon led to some serious riots. As is customary in France, the number of participants reported by the Ministry of the Interior and trade unions diverged. According to CGT data, 2.3 million people took to the streets. The Interior Ministry counted 782,000 demonstrators nationwide. At the end of the rallies, violent participants attacked the police forces in some cities.
In the meantime, there is increasing criticism of the operational management of the police. At a meeting of the Human Rights Committee on Monday, the United Nations reprimanded France for "excessive use of force by law enforcement forces" during demonstrations. The 193 UN member states regularly discuss the human rights situation and make recommendations. The criticism from the Scandinavian states was particularly harsh. Luxembourg has recommended that France "reconsider its policy of maintaining public order in order to prevent excessive use of force by law enforcement during demonstrations".
According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, police arrested 540 people during Monday's riots. In Paris alone, 305 suspected rioters were arrested. According to Darmanin, a total of 406 police officers were injured in the operations, 259 of them in Paris. A policeman was pelted with a Molotov cocktail in Paris and suffered severe burns. The perpetrators of the attack are still being sought. Interior Minister Darmanin said they were in the process of evaluating the camera images. 61 protesters were injured, including 31 in Paris.