Luis Miguel Pascual |
Paris (EFE).- The French president, Emmanuel Macron, showed on Tuesday a message of firmness in the face of the multiplication of street demonstrations against the pension reform, which keep various economic sectors paralyzed and threaten a fuel shortage in the coming days.
After receiving the heavyweights of his government and his parliamentary group at the Elysee, the president leaked a message that he will neither change the government, nor call elections, nor a referendum, as the opposition is asking, thus putting an end to the crowd rumors about that matter.
Macron will break his silence this Wednesday, when he will be interviewed on the two main channels in the country where he is expected to reveal his exit strategy from the political crisis in which the controversial pension reform has placed him.
But in a second meeting with parliamentarians, he made it clear that the street demonstrations will not make him change the course of his politics.
“The revolt cannot be imposed on the representatives of the people,” said Macron, who, although he said he understood the anger of the French over his reform, which delays the minimum retirement age by two years, to 64, opted to maintain it.
From the presidential side they are stubborn in giving up a struggle that unions and opposition want to maintain, both at the institutional level and on the social front, spurred by the tightness of the parliamentary vote, which the Executive won by only nine votes.
The opposition has filed appeals before the Constitutional Council and intends to force the government to call a referendum, for which it needs 4.5 million signatures.
Spontaneous manifestations multiply
But the pressure is now more evident in the streets of the country, where, since last Thursday the Executive decided to adopt the reform without a parliamentary vote, spontaneous demonstrations have multiplied, often accompanied by burning garbage or urban furniture.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1,200 of these concentrations have been registered, most of them in the capital, where almost 300 arrests were made last night alone.
The head of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, warned today that these anti-government protests are entering a phase of “enormous disorder” and cited the invasion of public buildings, the launching of projectiles at security forces and the burning of vehicles.
“We should all pay homage to the injured police and gendarmes, condemn the violence and, whoever wishes, demonstrate against the pension reform, in a republican manner,” he added.
Burning of street furniture
At night there were again protests and clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement, which ended with some disturbances and the burning of street furniture. The next few days seem key to knowing the strength of the new social front, which the parties of the left and the unions appeal to reinforce.
Thursday appears as a key date, with the ninth call for demonstrations throughout the country, the first since the text finished its parliamentary procedures. The unions are counting on making a show of their strength.
union front
No union, not even the CFDT dialogue, has come down from the united front against the reform, which completes the demonstrations with calls for strikes in various sectors.
The garbage collection is causing mountains of waste to accumulate in various cities, especially in Paris, despite the imposition of work decided by the Executive, which has led the mayoress, Anne Hidalgo, to open a crisis cabinet to manage the situation.
The other hot potato is fuel, since the blockade in the country’s main refineries is beginning to make gasoline or diesel scarce in some service stations.
According to some unofficial data, almost one in ten already suffers from restrictions, a proportion that is higher in some regions, such as Marseille, where half have shortages.
For this reason, the Government has imposed the return to activity of the Fos sur Mer deposit, in the southeast of the country, to avoid shortages, a measure that they assure that they will take to other facilities if they detect supply problems.
In transport, after several days in which the situation seemed to be normalizing, now it is getting complicated again, with a black day in Paris for this Wednesday.
At airports, 30% of the flights of the Parisian from Orly and one in five from Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse will be suspended.
In this climate of tension, the Government and the opposition clashed in Parliament over police action during citizen demonstrations.
The left-wing parties accused the Executive of using police brutality to frighten the protesters, while the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, defended the work of the State forces and recalled that 400 of them have been injured.