An insurrection in France is possible, say the unions fighting against Macron’s pension reform

The radicalization and violence after the application of the 49.3 mechanism (constitutional device that evades the legislature) to achieve the pension reform by force in France, worries the government, who were alerted by the unions of its danger and consequences.

“We had alerted the President of the Republic about the risk of tensions. The silence of the President of the Republic constitutes a serious democratic problem, which inevitably leads to a situation that can become explosive,” said the head of the CGT, Philippe Martinez. .

“No person will be able to tell us that we did not alert the president. Apart from the demonstrations, there are problems” warned Martinez this Saturday. The reform advances the retirement age by two years to 64 from 2030 and adds a year of contributions.

The risk of overflow is repeatedly mentioned by trade unionists. “A certain insurrection is possible” said Frederic Ben of the CGT Energie, when the spontaneous demonstrations multiplied and the Yellow Vests returned to the streets and to the marches.

After two nights of violence and repression in the Place de la Concorde, one of the most elegant in the country, a few steps from the Elysée Palace, the National Assembly and the North American embassy, ​​the police prefecture on Saturday afternoon prohibited demonstrations there and on the Champs-Élysées, the symbolic avenue that the Yellow Vests had chosen as their symbol, after their violent protests for two years.

“Due to serious public order and security problems, any gathering on public roads in and around Place de la Concorde, as well as the Champs-Elysées avenue sector, is prohibited,” the Police Prefecture announced in the afternoon. of Saturday.

The announcement followed the call through social networks to meet on Saturday night from “6:00 p.m., until the government falls.”

violence spreads

But the violence spreads to other parts of the country. On Friday night there were serious riots in Strasbourg, where the police intervened, and in Lyon, in the vicinity of the Prefecture and the Hotel de Ville. The town hall of the IV district of Lyon was assaulted and looted. More than 60 people were arrested in the place de la Concorde in Paris.

A woman holds a sign calling the president the “king of trash” in Paris AP

The marches and rallies continued on Saturday morning throughout the country, spontaneously. In Quimperle 1,200 people gathered, as in Roanne, Saint Etienne, Havre and Périgueaux, Nantes, Annecy, Marseille, and Orleans.

Protesters entered the Forum de Les Halles shopping center in the Marais district of Paris on Saturday. They chanted “Paris, rebel.”

The reconducive strikes continue. The three most important oil refineries in the country want to exert pressure and are controlled by the workers. The government wants to requisition them but this weekend they have already started to stop working.

A fuel shortage is expected from this weekend. According to Fit Data, as of Friday 3 percent were in fuel difficulties, 1.9 percent were in partial breakdown of at least one product and 1.1 percent were in breakdown.

Since March 7, not a drop of fuel has left the Donges refinery, according to the CGT. The same is happening at the Petroineos refinery, in Lavera, in southern France. Fuel distribution was halted on Friday.

The garbage can war continues in large French cities. In Paris, 10,000 tons of garbage are waiting to be collected. But with the three large incineration plants surrounded and determined not to burn the garbage, no one can pick it up.

The Police Prefecture has ordered the garbage to be removed, but it is going slowly. There are neighborhoods in Paris where they pick it up and on the same street but which corresponds to another neighborhood, it overflows with waste. The unsanitary crisis grows as spring temperatures rise.

Motion of censure

Two no-confidence motions have been filed to bring down the government of Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne. One is from 20 independent deputies and the other from the ranks of Marine Le Pen.

For the motion to be ratified, the votes of conservative Republicans, the left gathered in NUPES and the ranks of Marine Le Pen’s extreme right will be essential. That is why it is unlikely that the motion of no confidence will pass.

To achieve the objective, 32 Republican deputies must vote in favor and it is a figure that they have not achieved. 287 votes are needed to bring down the government and prevent the reform from being adopted.

Le Pen’s motion will be ignored by the other political forces. But the “transpartisan” motion of no confidence by the independents is destined to get many votes and includes the vote of certain Republican representatives who are dissatisfied with the reform.

The reality is that politicians and trade unionists do not want to bring down Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne but rather that President Emmanuel Macron withdraw the pension reform.

The goal in this crisis is not Madame Borne but to plunge the president into a much deeper and more dangerous crisis and force him to renegotiate. Otherwise, who is going to replace Madame Borne and how are they going to rebuild a government that has lost contact with the electorate that voted for him to prevent the arrival of Marine Le Pen to the Elysee?

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