There was another protest in Paris on Saturday. According to the organisers, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise, 150,000 turned out on a crisp winter’s afternoon to opposeEmmanuel Macron’s pension reform. The French President wants to lower the retirement age from 64 to 62. But independent analysis put the numer at the protest at 14,045. It was the latter. I was there.
I’m now something of a seasoned observer of the French street protest. From Yellow Vests to Covid Passports, and from the far right to the far left, I’ve rubbed shoulder with all manner of disgruntled French citizen. Yesterday’s protest was one of the jollier. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as a carnival atmosphere, but everyone was in good spirits, even the two young men wearing Antifa hoodies who I queued behind at the burger van. It being France, of course, there was far more sophisticated fare on offer than a mere slab of meat. Saucisses de Toulouse was on the menu, along with spicy Merguez and Andouillette, the latter a delicious tripe sausage.
Having eaten my Merguez and chips, I wandered around the Place de la Bastille. Placards had been attached to the railings that encircle the July Column in the centre of the square, where the Bastille prison once was. One read ‘Vive La Commune’, a reference to the working-class uprising in 1871 that was brutally suppressed, and on another was emblazoned ‘Borne 64, Nuances de Thatcher’. I don’t suppose the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, a Socialist before joining Macron’s centrist party, ever imagined she would find herself compared to Britain’s Iron Lady.
That wasn’t my only reminder of the Old Country. Among the many tracts being handed out was one from the CCI (Courant Communiste International). It was headlined ‘How to develop a Massive, United and Supportive Movement’, and it began by praising workers in Britain for their own recent industrial action. ‘Enough is Enough’, it thundered, in English. I was also handed an application form to join the ‘Yellow Vest Union’. The membership fee varied depending on an applicant’s monthly salary.
The Yellow Vests were out in force in the Bastille, their list of grievances usually scrawled on the back of their vests. Pension reform is only the latest in a long line of issues on which they don’t see eye-to-eye with their president. The majority of the Yellow Vests were middle-aged, and I’d describe most as blue-collar workers. Some of them had come from outside Paris and were intent on making a day of it. They sat on benches drinking beer and eating the sandwiches they’d prepared.
There were also a fair number of students – not as many as I’d expected given the number of young associations among the organisers – and an array of greying middle-class ‘boomers’, who seemed to be trying to summon up the spirit of May ‘68. That date featured prominently on books and badges that were on sale at the stalls scattered around the Place de la Bastille. At four euros for a cheaply made lapel badge, clearly not everyone thinks capitalism is a bad idea.
The event was well organised, unlike some rallies I’ve attended where the first hour is spent hanging around. It was billed as a 2pm start and the first speakers took to the podium on time. The most impressive speaker was François Ruffin, an MP in the Somme. The teachers and students who spoke lacked Ruffin’s fluency but not his determination. They all required a loud voice to make themselves heard above the music blasting out from a truck belonging to the New Anticapitalist Party. Who says Communists can’t have fun? This lot sang and danced the afternoon away.
The crowd eventually moved off, making their way from the Place de la Bastille to the Place de la Nation. Among the procession were a number of political figures, including Melenchon, who must have been disappointed by the low turnout. Nonetheless, he railed against Macron in characteristically colourful rhetoric, saying he wants to ‘transform our entire existence into merchandise… dirty everything, spoil everything, reduce everything, quantify everything’. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that he called this march on the same day in 1793 that Louis XVI had his head lopped off.
What Saturday’s modest turnout demonstrated is that opposition to Macron’s pension reform is not the exclusive preserve of the left. The million-plus people who took to the streets last Thursday come from a wide-cross section of French society. They are working class and middle class, young and old, and their anger has been building for years. Raising the age of retirement to 64 is a cause around which they can all rally but their ras-le-bol (despair) is far more profound. Today it’s the turn of France’s 33,000 bakers to protest, airing their alarm at soaring energy bills that threaten to put many out of business. Like so many others in France, they feel the Republic is in inexorable decline and that the years ahead will be ones of austerity. Macron said as much last August, telling France that ‘the age of abundance is over’.
The President is right. Times are changing and the comfortable living that the West has enjoyed in the last half a century is over. Macron wants to prepare France for this tighten-your-belt future and there are plenty of people who support his pension reform. But he is facing serious, committed opposition. ‘We are going to block society, paralyse the economy,’ boasted Olivier Besancenot, spokesman for the New Anticapitalist Party on Saturday. The government was reportedly ‘taken aback’ by the million and more people who took to the streets last Thursday, but nonetheless Sylvain Maillard, vice-president of Macron’s Renaissance party, has vowed ‘to see this through’.
For the moment, the determination of the two sides is in intact. It will likely turn into a war of attrition, and a springtime of strikes and protests. France’s burgers vans have never had it so good.
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