(55) FRANCE: RESISTING MACRON’S PENSIONS ATTACK – YouTube
A WIN Discussion, March 2023. President Macron and the French employers are trying to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, and extend the number of years of contributions. This is a serious attack on the standard of living of future retirees. It is also an attack on the right to live in retirement without having first been shattered and exhausted by work. In those sectors where the work is especially oppressive, either physically or psychologically, it constitutes an attack on life expectancy.
Macron is staking the end of his presidential term on this issue, and the leader of the conservative party La Republique is urging him not to give in to trade-union protests, because, according to him, “that would mean to abdicate“.
This year strikes and demonstrations have been staged again and again: on 19th January, 31st January, 7th February, 11th February, 16th February, 7th March… The power of these mobilisations has forced the trade-union federation National Intersyndicale to focus on one clear slogan: the withdrawal of Macron’s project.
How can this movement of social resistance be built and developed? How can it succeed? What are the issues at stake? What are the obstacles and difficulties involved? What would be the consequences for the unions and the working class of either victory or defeat? You are invited to hear answers to these questions from Olivier Delbeke, a CGT trade unionist and member of the editorial board of Arguments Pour la Lutte Sociale (aplutsoc.org)