Charlotte, a teacher in Paris, has not missed any demonstration since the start of the protest movement. Whatever the cost, she will be in the street this Thursday for the 12th day of mobilization. She entrusts hopes and frustrations to franceinfo.
République-Nation, Montparnasse-Place d’Italie or even Opéra-Bastille … The routes and songs of demonstrations against the pension reform in Paris, Charlotte, a teacher in the capital, unionized at the SNES-FSU, begins to know them by heart. “I did them all: eleven demonstrations, something like that. Plus occasional gatherings with my colleagues in front of the college-high school”, she counts while a 12th day of mobilization is organized Thursday, April 13.
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Apart from the two Saturdays of inter-union mobilization, where this mathematics professor does not work, it has therefore been nine half-days of strike since mid-January, the time of the demonstrations. The loss is clear:I must not be far from 1,000 eurosloose Charlotte. So far, it has not been deducted from my salaries at the end of the month. But when it falls, it will hurt. It could happen this summer, in the middle of vacation. So, we start to restrict the outings, the restaurants a little“.
“Anything that is not necessary, we are more careful. And yes, sometimes on strike days, we wonder: am I doing it? For now, I want to!”
Charlotte, striking teacherat franceinfo
And what keeps the teacher going is not so much the hope that the Constitutional Council will censure all or part of the reform on Friday: “I’m waiting for a start, for them to realize what they represent, the last step before the law comes into force. But they may take a decision that will not be common sense, but purely political. So in the sense of government”.
Nor does Charlotte expect that same government to back down in the face of protest. The 49-year-old teacher has her first demonstrations in mind, against the CPE, the first hiring contract. Voted, never applied by the Villepin government. But his hopes of seeing Elisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron imitate their predecessors are very small. “I find it lamentable that the people who decide are so stubborn. Under the pretext of ‘We were elected, it was in his program’. But the president did not win for that. On the evening of his re-election, he declared that this vote obliged him. He was not given full powers for five years. And today, he does not hear what the majority of the population thinks.
“I will be one of the millions of people who will have said no”
If Charlotte, who feels angry and disappointed rather than tired, still takes to the streets, and plans to do so again in the coming weeks, even if the text comes into force, it is above all a question of principle, “(his) duty to (fight)“. “In my head, I would not tell myself that I did nothing. This pension reform, we will suffer it. And at 64, it will not be easier to know that I have demonstrated, she explains. I do not see myself having the fishing, being 100% dynamic in front of 35, 36 students, at that age. But at least I would be one of those millions of people who said No. And who will have said No until the end. I’ll be comfortable with my conscience.”
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A state of mind shared in his teachers’ room, in his Parisian establishment. Up to 60% of his colleagues went on strike at the height of the mobilization, in particular teachers “who do not usually mobilize”. Angry but quite annoyed teachers. On the other hand, Charlotte is convinced of it: the fight for pensions will have had the merit, and it is rare, of bringing them together. A strike fund has been created, and it will be easier according to her to mobilize her colleagues during future struggles, in particular for the future labor law mentioned by the executive.
