Pension reform: there will be “very, very strong mobilization” on January 19, estimates WKT

Elisabeth Bourne said on Saturday she wants to “convince the French” of the merits of pension reform, Philippe Martinez is once again urging them to take to the streets en masse this Sunday next Thursday to demand their recall.

The general secretary of the CGT, a guest of France 3, said he sees many promises of strong mobilization: the petition launched by the Intersyndical unanimously opposing the reform, which collects more than 336,000 signatures this Sunday at noon, but also “the number of cases where it was ordered to withdraw for a demonstration, strike notices are publicly issued,” he listed, also recalling in passing that “we don’t need notices in the private sector.”

So, will the French be “a million to take to the streets,” as Communist Party boss Fabien Roussel asked in the Journal du Dimanche?

“I think we can be more, we are doing everything for this, but I don’t have a counter,” says Martinez. Who insists a little later: “Parliamentary debate depends on mobilization in the street, it will set the pace”, once the text is discussed in the Assembly and the Senate, while the left called for mobilization on Thursday.

But the leader of the CGT reminded of this: the trade unions do not demand a change in the text, but a direct rejection of the “unfair, unequal and doctrinaire reform.” It is “the cement of this allied unity” and “there is not a single sheet of tissue paper between us.”

Philippe Martinez was not asked about Fabien Roussel’s idea of ​​putting the pension reform to a referendum, not to a vote in parliament. “The referendum is half a year of campaigning. What could be more democratic than taking part in debates in factories, universities, in the media, project against project? “, emphasizes the Deputy at JDD.