Toulouse: the list of the biggest events
The Toulouse demonstration this Thursday, January 19 against the pension reform can already be compared to the major mobilizations experienced by the Pink City.
High rate of declared strikers in schools, major disruptions involved in the Tisséo bus network, closures of services in administrations… the signs are unmistakable: a strong mobilization is expected in Toulouse, on the boulevards, in 10 am, this Thursday, for the demonstration against the pension reform. Probably the first of a long series.
According to our information, the police, after having raised their first hopes, are counting on some 20,000 demonstrators in the Pink City, which is already a lot but perhaps still underestimated. If the unions, all united in battle, want to bend the government through strikes and blocking the economy, the numbers of participants in the various processions will also be decisive.
The comparison is essential with the major demonstrations experienced by Toulouse: 1995, 2003, 2010 and 2019. All of them already concerned reforms, abandoned or not, of the pension system.
1995: the summit.- In everyone’s mind, the protest against the Juppé reform remains the most important. Memory of the social movement in Haute-Garonne, today departmental co-secretary of the FSU, Bernard Dedeban, then already in the street, remembers a participation figured by the trade unions at 150,000 people and 120,000 by the prefecture. Whatever the reliability of these announcements, these figures reflect a monster mobilization. “Crowds of this type eventually become impossible to count,” said the trade unionist for whom, in another area, the rally for Charlie on January 7, 2015 is the one that attracted the most people. In 1995, the measure of comparison was, according to the oldest, the Liberation Days, the attendance of which had been exceeded.
2002: Le Pen and 2003, the Fillon reform.- In the 2000s, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s accession to the second round of the 2002 presidential election brought 120,000 people to say “no” on May 1 in Toulouse, according to the unions. And in the process, in 2003, against the Fillon reform, the level of mobilization again reached records with more than 100,000 demonstrators claimed by the unions when the police had 80,000.
2010: repeated demonstrations.- The decline in the retirement age from 60 to 62 years, wanted by Nicolas Sarkozy leads to repeated demonstrations. Several cross the impressive milestone of 100,000, according to the union figure, or 30,000, according to the police figure. On October 13, the organizers count 145,000 people in the street when the police announce 30,000.
2019, reform to points.- The first pension reform wanted by Emmanuel Macron, in points, also arouses several processions provided with always a large gap between unions (100,000 people) and police (45,000). A war of numbers that will certainly be reborn today.