The weekend will be crucial for the showdown around the pension reform. Opponents of the text are mobilizing once again this Thursday, on the eve of the verdict of the Constitutional Council.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected in the processions of France at the call of the inter-union, always united. At the Ministry of the Interior, territorial intelligence forecasts between 400 and 600,000 people in the streets, to be compared with the 570,000 listed on April 6 and the 740,000 on March 28.
Lower disturbances at the SNCF
On the transport side, the SNCF forecasts slightly lower disruptions than last week, with 3 TER out of 5 and 4 TGV out of 5, and only 1 Intercités train out of 5. In the Paris region, metro and RER traffic should be slightly disturbed. The General Directorate of Civil Aviation is asking airlines to give up 20% of their flights at the airports of Nantes, Bordeaux and Toulouse.
In energy, resumption of work and blockages have been lifted in refineries blocked for a week, but new calls for strikes have been made. Finally, universities remain a hot spot for mobilization. On Wednesday morning, more than a dozen university sites in Paris were blocked by protesters.
The executive and opponents of the reform await the decision of the Constitutional Council, scheduled for Friday at the end of the day. It seems unlikely that the Elders will undo the entire reform. But they could prune the text and thus strengthen the arguments of the inter-union in favor of a suspension or a withdrawal of the reform which would be de facto unbalanced.
From Amsterdam, where he was on a state visit, Emmanuel Macron also promised the unions on Wednesday an “exchange which will make it possible to initiate the follow-up and to take into account” the verdict of the Council. “The country must continue to move forward,” said the Head of State. “I will urge, for all that concerns them, the social partners to be able to return – I know that the period will still bear the traces of the disagreements of the moment – but I will do it with the spirit of harmony and the will to engage the following, whatever the decision of the Elders.
The boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, suggests for his part that in the event of partial censorship, the President of the Republic uses Article 10 of the Constitution to allow a new deliberation to be proposed to Parliament.
In the meantime, the unions fear weariness in the ranks of the demonstrators. “Big days of action like tomorrow, it will become complicated. We are going to enter a different rhythm, ”explained Benoit Teste, the secretary general of the FSU, on Wednesday. Among the hypotheses considered by the union staffs for the continuation of the movement, unitary demonstrations for May 1, even a large demonstration in Paris, which would bring together opponents from all over France.