A common saying in France tells us that “truth arises from a conflict of opinions.” Today, the country finds multiple sources of conflict crystallized in the fight against the pension reform currently being railroaded through parliament. The change would raise the retirement age from sixty-two to sixty-four, justified by the false idea that the pension system needs to be overhauled to keep it funded. President Emmanuel Macron’s policy would also require workers to make forty-three years of pension contributions before they have the right to a full pension.

This reform surely faces broad public opposition: 65 percent of France thinks the government should withdraw the measure, and 81 percent of people under thirty-five are opposed. Since the bill’s introduction in the National Assembly in January, millions of people have marched in the streets, with the country’s two largest trade unions, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT), creating an alliance not seen for over a decade. They have united behind a mass strike, which begins today, until the government withdraws its plan. Moreover, all opposition parties have criticized the policy one way or another — some cautiously, others with bombast, some from the Left, others from the Right.

In the National Assembly, the strongest opposition to the passage of the bill came from the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (NUPES), the left-wing coalition led by perennial presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who after the last election used his powerful score to attempt to establish hegemony over the Left. MPs from his party, La France Insoumise (LFI), the largest member of the NUPES coalition, waged the fiercest battle against the bill, introducing a blizzard of thirteen thousand amendments to prevent a vote on the seventh article, which raises the retirement age to sixty-four. They’ve also presented their own counter-bill: to lower the retirement age to sixty, with forty years of contributions for a full pension, and a minimum full pension payment of €1,600 a month.