“We are the heart of the reactor”: Nupes united on a platform against pension reform

“The Battle Begins,” reads the title of the evening. Hastily launched a week earlier, the left’s first unitary anti-pension rally took place this Friday evening in an egg-filled Parisian hall in the 11th arrondissement, with figures from the four Nupes components (EELV, LFI, PS and PC) sharing the stage. The task was to present a united front and mobilize without delay. “We are the heart of the reactor, now we need to warm up the country,” called the LFI deputy from the Somme François Ruffin very insultingly at the initiative of the event.

In front of about 1,000 people, the deputy sought to start mobilization as soon as the announcement was made of the first day of inter-allied mobilization on January 19, in which all nude parties participated.

“We are an ultra-majority and Macron knows it,” Ruffin said, nevertheless cautioning against general apathy. “Macron has given up trying to convince the French. He counts on the obedience of the French, that they will be silent, silent. Our worst enemy is not finance, but the indifference of people. Indifference weighs like a lid, and it is this lid that we must lift, the deputy urged. You must leave here with full energy. And tell the people Right now. »

“On the street 49.3 does not exist. »

The new Minister for the Environment of Europe and the Greens, Marine Tondelier, who took her place from the podium, also interrupted the reminder for 19 January. “This is a date, you should write it down in your diaries and get all your loved ones drunk to be there. This is the only way to get them back. True, the ecologist mentioned the battle at the Palais Bourbon – “ZAD will be the Assembly,” she predicts – but for her, the battle for pensions can be won by winning on the sidewalk: “The good news is that there is no . »

The boss of the Socialist deputies, Boris Vallo, warned: “The battle will be fierce. I hope you are mobilizing renewable energy tonight. He denounced “the cruel and unfair reform that Emmanuel Macron wants to be swallowed up by the French, who do not want it.” And socialist, to paraphrase the CGT. “This reform is a pension for the dead. This reform is a tax on the poor. (…) Macron is not a reformer, he is a liquidator,” condemned the PS MP.

On the podium, the chairman of the rebel group in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot, called for increased mobilization. “This energy scares them,” she said. In the corridors of power, this period is already being called Black January. Communist boss Fabien Roussel finally stressed that this first meeting of Nupes had called others “all over France”. And also call for “detonating the sensors” on January 19th. “Let’s have more than a million on the street and then we’ll talk. »