Paris (EFE).- The French unions want to convert their traditional protest day of May 1 into a new mobilization against the pension reform that is expected to be massive despite the fact that the law has already been approved and promulgated.
The question with the 300 demonstrations called all over the country, in which the centrals hope to gather hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even more than a million, is what form the protest will take from now on and if it will be achieved. maintain union unity in recent months.
Above all because the French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, has already advanced that she is going to convene them in the coming days to discuss not the pension reform, which should begin to be applied in a practical way from September, but other issues for trying to turn the page on the social crisis.
Beyond the size of the demonstrations, another aspect that is going to pay a lot of attention today are the feared riots, since the secret services believe that several thousand radicals could try to mix in the union parades, as has happened in many of the 12 days of mobilization since the movement began in January.
Deployment of 12,000 agents throughout the country
The Ministry of the Interior has planned a deployment of 12,000 agents throughout France, including 5,000 in Paris, where the march takes place from early afternoon between the Place de la République and the Place de la Nation.
Union leaders intend to meet on Tuesday morning to decide how to continue the fight against French President Emmanuel Macron’s reform that will push the minimum retirement age from the current 62 to 64.
Several of them, and in particular the secretary general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT, the country’s first federation), Laurent Berger, have already said that, contrary to the refusal they gave the government three weeks ago, they are willing to discuss other labor issues, but with some conditions.
This May 1st goes hand in hand with some strikes that are going to be noted in particular at airports with the air traffic controllers’ strike that forces the companies that operate in the nine largest French airports, including the two in Paris, to cancel between a quarter and a third of the flights.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has asked them to suppress 33% of the operations at the Parisian airport of Orly, as well as those of Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes and Toulouse.
In addition, they have to cancel 25% of the flights in Charles de Gaulle, also in Paris, which is the busiest airport in France, as well as in Nice and Beauvais (outside Paris).