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On the eve of the fourth day of mobilization against the pension reform, a public meeting was organized on Friday February 10 by the political forces of the NUPES and by the inter-union at the Cultural Center of Villeurbanne.
At this evening, we found the MEP of France Insoumise and co-president of the Group of the United European Left, Manon Aubry; the first secretary of the socialist party, Olivier Faure; the deputy EELV of the 3th Rhône constituency, Marie-Charlotte Garin; the communist senator of Seine-Saint-Denis, Eliane Assassi; the regional ecological adviser of Maine-et-Loire, Arash Saeidi. The watchword was unity in the face of pension reform “unfair” et “democratically dangerous”.
Democracy is endangered by a brutalization of the debate, a contempt for the parliamentary system and a disregard for the people
While 93% of working people and 7 out of 10 French people say they are opposed to the pension reform, the government is turning a deaf ear, even declaring through its spokesperson, Olivier Véran, that the number of demonstrators will not change anything. . MEP Manon Aubry then denounces, not without a touch of humor, the denial of the government and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in the face of the scale of the social movement: “In the kingdom of the blind, the Bornes are kings”.
MP Marie-Charlotte Garin, for her part, evokes a “brutalization of the country” by the presidential camp, and not only since this reform: “It is not normal to be afraid to go to a demonstration with your children […]the voice of citizens is not listened to, whether that of the yellow vests or the citizens’ convention for the climate […]the debates in the assembly are brutal”.
There is much to complain about the way this pension reform is defended by the government in the Senate and the National Assembly. The presidential camp has decided to go through article 47-1 of our constitution, including the reform in a financial text while it is a structural reform. This legislative sleight of hand, stained with grounds of unconstitutionality, aims to reduce the time for debates in the National Assembly. This practice is considered ” dishonest “ et “pernicious” by Senator Eliane Assassi: “ The muzzling of parliamentary debate not only constitutes a risk for the balance of powers, but it undermines the confidence of politicians which is deteriorating day by day in the eyes of public opinion and this can only play into the hands of the ‘far right “.
Confidence in politics has also been damaged by the untruths uttered by the government, such as the minimum pension of €1,200 for full careers. The insults uttered by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, do not go in the direction of appeasement either, exclaims MEP Manon Aubry.
For Cédric Van Styvendael, the pension reform is “unfair, unjustified and unnecessary”. The mayor of Villeurbanne thus justifies the overall vision of this reform by the stakeholders. First of all, it is unfair for young people, as underlined by Constantin, a scholarship student and trade unionist who came to warn about student precariousness. Extending the duration of working time, when we know that the unemployment rate among young people is substantial, can only aggravate the problem. It’s the same problem for seniors where nothing is done in the reform to encourage companies to hire them.“The unemployment rate among young people is exploding and the employability of seniors is low”, explains Senator Eliane Assassi.
A reform that serves women
Contrary to what the government may say, the reform does women a disservice: “With this pension reform, women will have to work 7 months longer compared to 5 months for men”, underlines Charlène, activist of the collective “Droit des Femmes 69”.
The ecologist deputy Marie-Charlotte Garin denounces, for her part, a “instrumentalization” of women’s rights since this reform does not remedy any of the existing inequalities: “We are instrumentalizing women’s rights to pass the pill”.
Women are still paid 22% less than men, for example. The reform penalizes them even more than it does not take into account their choppy careers. It is all the more unfair for nurses, who, before retirement, could leave at age 55. When we know that a nurse has a life expectancy of 7 years lower than the average for women, the reform becomes even more difficult to accept.
An unfair pension reform
This pension reform once again requires the poorest in the country to make “an effort”, as regional council Arash Saeidi explains: “We applauded the first ropes during the covid crisis and to thank them we ask them to work two more years”.
But work more to finance whose retirement? This is the question posed by Olivier Faure, denouncing a system of “Robin Hood Upside Down”. We deduct from the poor to finance the retirement of the rich: “The blue collars will pay the retirement of the white collars”, warns Olivier Faure.
Senator Eliane Assassi denounces an ideological and not “necessary” reform as the government claims: “It is capital that defends itself with a predatory logic against the people and the world of work”.
To fill the pension deficit, we must distribute the wealth produced, increase social security contributions and stop emptying the public coffers
One of the major axes defended by the left to solve the problem of deficit resides in a better sharing of the added value. We should first and foremost fight against tax evasion and then tax the superprofits that have achieved records with the successive crises. Olivier Faure denounces the profiteers of the crisis: “While we contribute, they super profit […] they want to tax our lives, we want to tax their super profits”.
It is not a question of abolishing employers, but of restoring a certain balance, especially when we know that 42 French billionaires are as rich as 25 million of their fellow citizens. It is in this perspective that the first secretary of the socialist party fits, inviting the big bosses like Bernard Arnaud (CEO of LVMH) or Patrick Pouyanné (CEO of Total), if they feel so patriotic, to participate more to the community.
We know that the deficit linked to pensions does not lie in expenditure, contrary to what the government asserts, where the number of active people in relation to the number of retirees is falling. It’s more of a revenue issue. This is why the CGT in particular proposes to work less (32 hours per week) so that more people work and therefore contribute. Revenues can also be increased by raising wages or by closing wage gaps between women and men: “If we increase wages by 2 points in the GDPG, we settle the deficit” specifies Manon Aubry.
