Macron consults everywhere after adopting reform
The French president will welcome Prime Minister Elisabeth Bourne on Tuesday, along with several members of the government and majority leaders.
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AFP
Now? Adoption of the pension reform in parliament is far from signing off on the end of the challenge to Emmanuel Macron’s flagship plan, which was the day after protests in several cities across France held consultations everywhere on Tuesday, sometimes marred by strong tensions.
The Head of State is due to receive front-row Elizabeth Bourne at 9:00 a.m., who narrowly escaped toppling her government the day before, only to be rejected by nearly nine votes. National Assembly. The prime minister was invited to the Elysee along with several members of the government and the majority leader, pledging on Monday evening to “continue to bring about the changes that our country needs”.
Emmanuel Macron will then have lunch with Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, presidents of the Assembly and Senate, before an evening meeting with parliamentarians from the presidential camp.
“The Fight Will Go On”
Thanks to the denied procedure of 49.3, which allows the adoption of a text without a referendum unless the government is censured, the reform – which provides for the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 – was officially adopted in parliament on Monday.
But in a tighter-than-expected vote (notably 19 out of 61 LR delegates cast their votes for a nonpartisan audit motion), this parliamentary epilogue did little to ease the pressure on the administration. On the contrary.
Marine Le Pen began calling for Elizabeth Bourne to “get out” or “resign the president,” and many voices from the left called for her resignation. “The fight continues”, chanted all the leaders of the Noobs Alliance. They are specifically counting on appeals to the Constitutional Council and have drawn up a request for a Shared Initiative Referendum (RIP), which the elders must scrutinize.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bourne announced on Monday evening that she would go “directly” to take over the Constituent Assembly so that it examines the text “as soon as possible”.
Opponents of reform should also continue to fight in the streets. Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for a “popular censorship” that would reveal “en masse in all circumstances and in all places”. “Nothing will undermine the determination of the workers”, the CGT warned for its part, while Laurent Berger, general secretary of the CFDT, called for mobilization for strikes and demonstrations the next day, scheduled for March 23.
Berger’s concern
Laurent Berger also said he was worried about the “anger” and “violence” that could be expressed by adopting the law “without a majority in the national assembly”.
On Monday evening, trash cans, barricades overturned and burned, projectiles thrown at police and smoke bombs marked some of the protests that erupted spontaneously across France after the reform was adopted.
According to the prefecture, the same tense scenes have been reproduced in several large cities such as Lyon, Nantes, Rennes, or Strasbourg. “It’s going to explode,” chanted demonstrators in Lille. “Louis XVI, we beheaded him, Macron we will start again.”
In Donges (Loire-Atlantique), police intervened overnight from Monday to Tuesday to block an oil terminal occupied by strikers for a week, an AFP photographer was on the scene. A source close to the strikers, who were joined by the AFP, reported overnight “clashes” before the intervention ended.
In Paris, after 12:30 a.m., 171 people were arrested, a police source said.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon condemned the “arbitrary” arrests. “Tonight, dozens of peaceful people were violently and arbitrarily arrested,” tweeted the Insoumis leader, including two LFI activists. “We demand an immediate end to the arrests and the release of those in prison!”
Throughout the day, anger was expressed by new rallies, sit-ins, blocked roads, cut off traffic or the start of social conflicts for the first time through dry gas stations.
AFP
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