French president Emmanuel Macron’s decision to force through a rise in the retirement age from 62 to 64 has driven levels of anger to new heights in France. Millions have continued to take to the streets, and strikes continue. Socialist Party member Ruby Cunningham, who is studying in France, reports from the protests:
“A week since the pension changes became law, the biggest crowd yet assembled in Clermont-Ferrand with one clear objective: to make their voices heard.
“Student groups and trade union branches from around the region mobilised once again to show their anger at the current government. Slogans included ‘no to 64’, among other criticisms of the pension reforms, Macron’s ‘contempt’ for working people, and concerns about the state of democratic process in France.
“Chants and speeches took up a number of pressing issues: hospital workers’ pay, working conditions, gender equality and police brutality, as well as a call for working-class solidarity.
“One sign read ‘you give us 64, we’ll give you May ‘68’ – referring to the historic general strike that took France to the brink of revolution.
“The cost-of-living crisis and precarity of minimum wage workers and students is a recurrent theme both on campus and in the streets. A group of art and architecture students from a nearby university assembled to protest on their homemade float, with a coffin reading ‘our retirement’. At the Université Clermont Auvergne, student activists blockaded entrances with bins and upturned tables, asking students to support the movement.
“The French government’s attack on pensions is just one example of a widespread campaign against the working class.The French workers’ determined strike movement, backed up by the protests of youth, is an inspiration to workers in Britain and around the world.”
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