Paris, (EFE) tenth, registered a lower participation than the previous one.
The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, emphatically rejected the union’s proposal to seek mediation to help overcome the social and political crisis that France has been experiencing for weeks in exchange for parking the application of the reform.
“There is no need for mediators,” Verán assured at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, in which he stressed that the controversial reform has already been approved and that any dialogue with the unions must be “to move forward, not to return to back”.
The main union leaders received the refusal while they were preparing to begin the 250 demonstrations called throughout the country.
“It is unbearable that the answer is rejection,” declared the leader of the country’s main union, Laurent Berger (CFDT), before beginning the demonstration.
“We have proposed an exit door, now what is needed is for the Government to respond. It seems that for now it is not ready. Maybe it will change in a few hours,” he added.
Both Berger and Philippe Martínez, leader of the second union in the country, the CGT, indicated that the inter-union group that brings together eight main workers’ organizations is going to write to Macron to try to convince him to accept mediation, something that the little boy has done. centrist MoDem party, an ally of the president.
Fewer protesters, some incidents
Participation in the marches showed a clear decrease compared to other calls, with fewer protesters in Paris and in other cities.
According to the CGT union, a total of 450,000 people in Paris, compared to 800,000 last Thursday, when they set a record. The national figures of the union and those of the Ministry of the Interior have not yet been released.
In Paris, the crowd gathered from the symbolic Place de la République, scene of some of the most important rallies in the country’s history, to march along Boulevard Voltaire to Place de la Nation.
The staging reflected the deep discomfort against Macron, reflected in the posters and chants against him, some rescued from the time of “the yellow vests”, the popular revolt that since the end of 2018 put the president in trouble.
The participation in Paris was heterogeneous. From young university students to septuagenarians, passing through families with their minor children. There were first-time protesters, like Charlotte, 27, a student at the University of Dijon.
“I am not expressing myself specifically against the pension reform, I am expressing myself against the use of 49.3 by the Government,” the twenty-year-old told EFE, alluding to the constitutional shortcut activated by the Executive to approve the law without a vote in the Assembly .
“We are in a democracy and this measure is undemocratic,” added the university student, accompanied by a friend, also a first-time protester against the pension reform. “I think the incidents come more from the forces of order,” said the second, a doctoral student in Orléans.
Although the protest was peaceful and the unions have condemned the violent outbreaks generated by small radical groups, there were some incidents with some charges by riot police officers and by mid-afternoon local time there were already 22 detainees.
The Ministry of the Interior had organized an unprecedented security device, with a total of 13,000 agents throughout the country, including 5,500 in Paris, in order to prevent a further increase in violent incidents such as the one that occurred in the protests in last week.
On the other hand, the strike by workers of the garbage collection service in the middle of Paris will end tomorrow after 23 days of strike, as announced by the CGT union.
At the height of the strike, some 10,000 tons of garbage accumulated in the streets of the capital, a material that was used by participants in the protests to cause small fires in the streets of Paris. EFE