Slowly but surely, France’s mass protests against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform appear to be petering out. Following two months of unrest, the president’s flagship bill, which aims to raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years old starting from 2030, prompted 480,000 people (1,7 million according to the country’s main trade union, the CGT) to take to the streets on 15 March, versus 1.28 million people on 7 March (3.5 million people according to the CGT).
Voted by the Senate as the last of Saturday’s protests were taking place, the national assembly is set to examine the bill from 3pm today, Thursday 16 March. One scenario would have discussions until 26 March, while it is not excluded the government passes the reform without a vote - a procedure enabled by Article 49 Paragraph 3 of the French constitution. But whatever the outcome, the last few weeks will have demonstrated the country’s trade unions are still a force to be reckoned with.
The national secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, put it plainly when he stressed on 19 February that the protests’ scale had everything to do with unions and nothing to do with political parties. In a barely veiled pique to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), Martinez railed against politicians who attempted to “take credit for the social movement and substitute themselves to trade unions, or make themselves bigger than those marching in the street”.
