Unless it ends in “a departure into exile”, Napoleon-style, as suggested by Daniel, a Lille resident, the expiry of the famous “hundred days” thatEmmanuel Macron fixed to its Prime Minister to restore “momentum to the nation” is not really part of the calendar of the French mobilized on this May 1 against the pension reform. “When did these hundred days begin? “, jokes an intermittent Toulouse, who “does not care as much as [ses] first socks. “It’s really smoke! “says Ayat, a cégétiste who also parades under the gray sky of the Pink City and prefers to project herself “day to day”.
Mostapha, who pounded the pavement this Sunday morning in Rennes, judges that “this course of a hundred days”, is “window dressing”. “It’s a concept to influence the population and say ‘Move around, there’s nothing to do'”, analyzes this agent of the territorial public service. Same feeling for Pierre, sixty-year-old northerner. He sees in it “a desire to act as if everything was closed, without taking into account the opinion of the population”.
“Macron’s Clock”
Nor do union officials believe in it. “The hundred days for us, that does not mean much. We don’t expect anything. It’s just a way for Macron to wait for the tornado to pass, and we find that cynical, ”says Jessica Jadé, spokesperson for the CGT in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
“The hundred days, already, it was Emmanuel Macron who spoke about it first. So given everything he does to us, we can have doubts, explains Hervé Aussel, the federal secretary of the CFDT in Haute-Garonne. And anyway for us, it’s not an end in itself. What people see is not the 100 days but the two years of retirement that they lose and food prices that continue to rise. We have not turned the page”.
The only date that is valid for this militant will be that of the withdrawal of the reform. “Because it’s still possible, we’ve already seen it,” he says. The determination of Cécile, who works in the health sector, is just as complete: “Starting something when there is no dialogue, I find this way of doing things so absurd and contemptuous that it encourages me to continue to mobilize myself, but not just for a hundred days. Limitless “.
“Unless they simply withdraw this unjust reform, I don’t think the mobilization will stop. It will last until the end of the mandate if nothing moves, ”joins Pierre, a Rennais who came to demonstrate with his frying pan in his hand. “The 100 days is Macron’s clock, considers Pedro, a 48-year-old Parisian protester. But we’re going to crack him first. Look at the procession which was to be festive how much it degenerates. It is certain that the mobilization will not stop there. »
Coralie, a student, has a small pinch of indulgence for “the 100-day roadmap” and certain “important” projects that she brushes aside “like ecology”. But, she adds, “the subject is not there. We will move on when the reform is withdrawn, period. And if they believe that the mobilization will run out of steam, they are mistaken because the youth has shown that it was very determined since the start of the movement. “.
What modes of action for the future?
One hundred days or four years until the Presidential, the Labor Day demonstrators want to continue their fight. For Fabrice Lerestif, departmental secretary FO in Ille-et-Vilaine, “this mobilization of May 1 is of course not a last stand as some would like. And the new course set by the Prime Minister will not change anything. So we are going to leave for 100 days of conflict even if we know that it is financially complicated for some “
Cédric Caubère, the boss of the CGT in Toulouse would see the protest widen to the question of wages and move inside companies “Small salary, small pension. We have dates looming, he announces, The employees have understood that they did not have much to expect from a government that obeys the orders of the Medef. The battle for pensions is also the battle for wages, and that is a battle that is waged on work tools”.
Finally, there are those who validate the “hundred days” but with great irony. “Very well, these hundred days! That leaves us a hundred days to mess up the country. We wondered how to bounce back. Macron gave us a golden gift! “, Loose from Marseille Nicolas Davan, the general secretary of the CGT Energie Provence union.