“It can’t go on forever like this.” Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire is more and more impatient. Secretary of State for Transport Djebbari lost his temper and sent special police squads against the picket lines. Macron’s government can hardly hide its exasperation with the ongoing mobilization. It expected the SNCF and RATP strikes to peter out with time and to be unpopular with the general public. Unexpectedly for the government, the strike is holding out and remains popular.

Workers have every reason to remain mobilized against a government that is clinging to its reform. All the setbacks imagined by the administration have found their way into the reform: the “point-based” calculation of workers’ pension benefits; the “pivotal” age of 64; the downsizing of reversionary pension rights; etc. The government said it wasn’t against taking better account of the strenuousness of certain jobs. That’s a song that workers in construction or public works hear whenever a pension reform is on the government’s agenda.

The last time the government tried to give them a similar sugar-coated pill was in 2017, when no other than the present government abolished “arduous postures” or “mechanical vibrations” as criteria for early retirement. To this day, the government has systematically refused to take these criteria into account. If it is adopted, the Macron reform will compel workers in construction, public works, sewer maintenance, house moving and other trades or industries who are worn-out at age 55 to wait until they’re 64 to get full pension.

These days, they’re on strike and they chant: “You take the underground to go to work / You take the underground to come back from work / And before you know it you’re six feet under / No, no, no!”.

The hundreds of thousands of workers who have so far taken action clearly understand that this reform is aimed at delaying retirement age and at cutting pension benefits.

In his New Year’s speech, Macron presented his reform as a way to ensure “solidarity between generations". But he asks the strikers to allow him to slash their children's pensions! 

Macron’s ministers and cronies are permanently repeating that the new regime will be a universal, one-for-all system. At the same time, they’re busy making concessions to this or that category. This is an indication that the government fears the movement. A worthy contribution to those who want to keep the struggle going!

Macron has postponed other attacks he had been preparing against working people, such as the lowering of housing benefits, and a law intended to facilitate the opening of businesses until midnight. These postponements are to the credit of the movement, and the future of these measures depends on the outcome of the struggle over pensions.

For all these reasons, many workers are determined to take on the showdown for as long as it takes. This movement expresses much more than working people’s opposition to Macron’s pension reform. It affirms the interests of the workers, a social class that can no longer bear the burden of the capitalist minority.

The mobilized workers are proud to represent the interests of those who make everything in society work. They can no longer accept to see their rights and their existence sacrificed to the greed of capitalists. The capitalists are bloated, overfed fat cats--like the capital owners of BlackRock. The boss of Black Rock for France, Jean-François Cirelli, is asking for a reform that would increase retirement savings and therefore profits. He has just been promoted by Macron to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour! As for Carlos Ghosn, who could escape the judiciary because he is rich, has three passports and a flock of “second” homes, he is also a representative of this profit-rich capitalist class. No, workers will not submit to Cirelli, Ghosn and their likes, nor will they submit to people like Delevoye who, after laying the foundations of the reform, was forced to leave the scene pitifully because he had defrauded the state.

To force the government to abandon its project, the world of labor must put all its forces in the balance. At the SNCF and RATP, workers have been on strike since December 5. They have shown a fighting spirit that is to be commended. But, above all, they must not be left alone. There must be strikes in other sectors and mass demonstrations. The outcome of the struggle will depend on the extent of the mobilization in the coming days and weeks.

In this capitalist society, only those who fight can gain respect. From Thursday, January 9, we can show that we reject this reform. Let us all join the strike. Let us all be in the streets on January 9 and again on Saturday 11 to express our anger! Let us begin the year 2020 with a genuine class struggle, because that’s the only way of bringing hope to working people.