On Thursday, pro-government lawmaker Gilles Le Gendre stated that the pension system reform proposed by President Emmanuel Macron is “necessary” but “not fair.”
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"We have not managed to convince people of this reform's importance. However, it is not fair as we ask everybody for their efforts,” Le Gendre argued.
He stressed that correcting injustices in the current pension system demands efforts such as increasing the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
“It is a good step forward that they recognize that this reform is unfair. However, they need to understand that it is also unnecessary,” opposition lawmaker Manuel Bompard tweeted, implicity referring to the proposal made by legislator Jean-Luc Melenchon, who suggested raising big corporations and billionaires and taxes to solve this situation.
The tweet reads: "Alert #5543 #ViolencesPolicies. During a Republican Security Companies (CRS) charge against the demonstrators, several batons are struck in the head."
“The ‘Survival of the Richest’ Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM) report showed that 10 French billionaires earn the equivalent of two years of gas, electricity, and fuel bills in France. It seems then fair to us that this part of the population is the one that contributes to solving the current crisis of the pension system crisis,” Melenchon argued.
On Thursday, over 1.1 million French workers took to the streets in Paris to oppose Macron's plan of extending the statutory retirement age. Demonstrations went off peacefully except for some clashes between protesters and the Police in downtown.
The Macron administration’s spokesperson Olivier Veran, who did not expect a massive mobilization, acknowledged that there had been a major turnout in the movement against the pension system reform.
"We will carry on until Macron withdraws the whole reform plan," General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union Secretary Marie Buisson highlighted, calling other unions for massive strike action.