I went to support the 25,000 demonstrators who came from all over the department to participate in the parade in Nice against the government’s pension reform and in defense of pensions. It’s a historic mobilization for our city, on a level equivalent to 1995.
It was pleasing to see so many people alongside the unions, activists, and socialist officials. As I mentioned, unions mobilize, political parties mobilize, but it is the people who decide whether or not to respond.
And this morning, the people responded by showing up. A reform is needed, of course, but not just any reform and certainly not anyhow. The government’s flagship reform cannot be considered without in-depth consultations with all the unions. It cannot take as a precondition the challenge to the essential achievement established by François Mitterrand: retirement at 60!
25,000 in Nice, 2.5 million in France. If the government remains deaf to such a powerful message, this social frustration will find its political outlet in 2012, just as the strikes of 1995 found theirs in the 1995 legislative elections.
