The executive, in a Council of Ministers, held 5 minutes before the vote,
believing that 2 votes were missing to achieve the majority, chose to approve thelaw on pension reform, using art. 49.3 of the French Constitution to escapejudgment of the National AssemblyAnd. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne andPresident Macron chose a showdown, opposing the mobilization of the Frenchhead-on, which accompanied the debate with strikes and demonstrations that sawthe participation of millions of French and 3 million and seven hundred thousanddemonstrators and the calling of 9 general strikes. Public opinion considered thedecision to be an authoritarian and anti-democratic gesture, even if provided forby the Constitution; continuous protest rallies have taken place and are takingplace, and many more will take place."This pension reform project has no social, popular, democratic legitimacy. Forthis reason, according to the provisions of art. 49 paragraph 3 of theLegislative Decree Constitution and by articles 153 and following of the internalregulation of the National Assembly, the deputies present and vote on this motionof censure." it is stated in the first motion presented by Bernard Pancher and 90other colleagues; similar contents and motivations had the second motion, signedby Marine Le Pen, signed by 87 colleagues. The discussion took place on Monday21st and after the intervention of the representatives of eleven parliamentarygroups and the reply of the prime minister, the two motions were voted; the firstreceived 278 votes, 9 fewer than necessary; the second received fewer votes.Reform is therefore law, even if the Borne government comes out of it shattered.Spontaneous demonstrations immediately took place and, despite the coup d'état bythe executive, the unions announced that the mobilization would continueindefinitely and a new general strike was called for Thursday the 23rd.It is a widespread opinion among workers of the various categories that thegovernment will retrace its steps only if the damage caused to the bosses by anopen-ended mobilization will be of such an entity as to make a continued andwidespread social conflict unsustainable. For this reason, the forms of strugglehave assumed and will maintain radical characteristics where the inconveniencesand therefore the effects of the mobilization are greatest, such as in Paris,where the strike of the garbage collectors has multiplied the piles of rubbish(the presence of 10 tons was already calculated of rubbish) and the situationwill only get worse because the pickets of the strikers block the collectiontrucks in the depots.After the ineffective vote on the motions of censure calling for the government'sresignation, the next step at an institutional level is to submit the approvedprovision to a referendum which would suspend its effects for 9 months, givingtime for further mobilisations. 250 signatures have already been collected fromdeputies asking for it to be carried out. But the procedure is difficult due tothe necessary ruling by the Council of State for the referendum to be called.Meanwhile strikes and demonstrations will continue.This position of the Government opens up a difficult crisis to resolve alsobecause the opposition to the approved law is very strong in the country andtherefore the outcome of the dispute is entrusted to social conflict. Macron andthe majority of him pay the price for the electoral failure and are unable togovern the country as they have done so far, juggling between the right and leftopposition. And this is because the pension provision displeases everyone andunites the opposition, since 68% of the French are against the law. Strengthenedby this support, the blockade of refineries, power plants, transport will growand the mobilization among young people and in schools will only grow.Intermittent strikes and pickets are expected across France in the coming days.Strike continuedThe inter-union has already decided to develop a calendar of indefiniteagitations and mobilizations, stimulated by strikes and demonstrations alreadyproclaimed at the peripheral level throughout the country, and this even if thefatigue of the strikers and demonstrators is growing due of the costs of theunrest. Therefore, initiatives are multiplying to set up resistance funds andraise funds for the strikers in the belief that some strikes such as those intransport, workers in the energy sector and in refineries in particular, subwaystops in cities, those of garbage collectors, they are particularly harmful tothe employers and to the government and can induce the other party to withdrawfrom its choices.Many schools are occupied, the patchy mobilizations proliferate and, however thedispute will end, the clash between the Government and the country has dug a deepfurrow that will be impossible to fill.The stakesTo understand the motives and reasons for the radical nature of the ongoingconflict, one must bear in mind that what is at stake goes beyond the pensionreform: in the squares and streets of France a battle is being fought against anindividualistic vision of society in which accumulation speculation prevails oversolidarity. The lengthening of the retirement age harms women above all. Tounderstand the reasons, it should be noted that the pension is calculated on theaverage of the best wages over 25 working years and for women, it is well known.they have lower wages and discontinuous periods of work.The calculation of the pension for women is influenced by the delay with whichthey enter the labor market, leave for family reasons, periods of part-time work,etc. These elements decrease, and not by a small amount, the degree of coverageof pensions based on the distribution system (the one for which the contributionsof active workers constitute the resources necessary for the pensions paid out).In recent years the insufficient growth of wages, the discontinuity of work, afemale labor market characterized by lower wages and greater job discontinuityhave reduced the volume of contributions, lowered the degree of coverage of pensions.These factors have been matched by the political and economic support forsupplementary pensions and private pension funds, a choice that responds to anorientation of Community policy, fascinated by the Anglo-Saxon system of pensionfunds, or by the financial activity of those companies that collect subscriptionsof supplementary pensions and invest the capital on the stock market, draggingthe subscribers to ruin in the event of failure and bankruptcy (the famous andwell-known disasters of American and British pension funds). Well, despite thesebad performances, in the last twenty years, the collection of money from privatepension funds has also grown steadily in France, facilitated and supported by taxrelief measures which have allowed paid policies to be deducted in the tax return.In other words, the drop in pension coverage has been remedied through individualnon-solidarity interventions implemented by holders of higher incomes and workerswith better wages, among whom in general the share of women is lower, with theresult of increasing further gender inequalities. Finally, it should be addedthat, due to the growing precariousness of the labor market, especially for youngpeople, the pensions that are envisaged, even if the current system is left inforce, can only be characterized by lower quality and quantity benefits.Need for reform From all this it follows that in France, as everywhere, a pension reform wouldbe more than necessary, but diametrically opposed to that undertaken by theFrench Government and by many other European countries in which the conditionsfor retirement are much worse and the age for the legal pension certainly higher.What is needed to re-discuss and place at the center of the debate andconfrontation is the question of the structure of the salary and its sizethroughout the European area, starting from the principle that if coordination isa priority and synergies between the economic, climate and energy policies of theIn various countries, wages and labor costs cannot be a variable managed by theowners of those territorial districts that still bear the name of nation-states,but must respond to common criteria and parameters.This would be a necessary measure to prevent and avoid the dumping of investmentsbetween the various countries belonging to the Union, but also thedumpingsalaries on the basis of which the balance of power is established betweenbosses and workers, or more generally between workers and the employers' side. Itis necessary to prevent wage and regulatory differences from being played out interms of a competitive relationship, for the purpose of greater exploitation andextraction of surplus value from working activity. But these economic and wagepolicy choices are far from the intentions of the current political managers ofthe EU's economic and political space.It is for these reasons that the ongoing battle in France is important for allEuropean workers, especially at a time when wage struggles in the face of risinginflation are restarting everywhere (most recently in Portugal with a generalstrike ). The ongoing struggles should provide the necessary impetus to initiatea change in the political stage.The editorial staffhttp://www.ucadi.org/2023/03/22/francia-colpo-di-mano-del-governo/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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