550.000 signatures against the El Khomri law: "Our online petitions are the epicenter of citizen mobilization"

The online petition "Loi travail, non merci!" garnered over 554.000 signatures in one week. Citizen mobilization on an unprecedented scale on the Change.org platform. According to Benjamin des Gachons, its director, this record illustrates a "form of new militant energy, which propels citizen indignation into the hands of the legislator".

Launched by feminist activist Caroline de Haas with association and union activists, this indictment against the El Khomri law targets in particular twelve measures of the labor bill, which will be presented on March 9 in the Council of Ministers. The petition already counts more than 554.000 signatures at the time of publishing this article. A record for the online petitions platform, which currently hosts 608.765 petitions worldwide.

"We are at 73.000 signatories per day, or 3000 more signatures every hour, and we are witnessing a form of new citizen and militant energy", says Benjamin des Gachons, who observes "peaks after each appearance of Caroline de Haas in the media". Among the signatories, employees, retirees and self-employed, but also bosses claiming to be on the right as well as on the left. Dominique Sidoine, a retiree whose post was "liked" by more than 2200 people, writes that he no longer accepts "that a government of the left conducts a policy that the right would not even have dared to attempt".

Julien Rennesson, boss of 25 employees, finds him "inadmissible" a law that represents a return to "fundamental social back [which] will only serve large companies". Opinion approved by more than 400 Internet users. A "mine of content" for the unions, with which the junction "comes naturally" , explains the director of Change.org France. "This rapid and vertical citizen mobilization goes beyond simple indignation, since it is also the basis for concrete actions that are carried out hand in hand with the unions and can thus make it possible to translate into a form of organization more traditional and horizontal", he hopes. Clearly, in a social mobilization of magnitude, with days of strike and social demonstrations in the key. Tuesday, February 23, a dozen trade union organizations met for the first time in inter-union since 2013, in order to decide on a common response project.

A response already organized on social networks. On Facebook, more than 21.000 people want "demand the withdrawal of the labor law" by going to the streets on March 9 following the call of three Internet users "citizens and activists". On Youtube, a dozen French YouTubers took advantage of the enthusiasm generated by the petition on Change.org to gather in a common video and start the hashtag #BetterThanThat.

inviting the "people to tell their troubles at work", the hashtag was propelled into 63^e position of trending topics (the most discussed topics on Twitter) worldwide in less than 24 hours. As for the video of the youtubers, it has already been viewed more than 600.000 times.

"Our online petitions are the epicenter of citizen mobilization", suggests Benjamin des Gachons, convinced that the platform, with its tools for updates, comments or even the additional creation of a website which dissects the government's proposals, are fertile ground for obtaining the support of "no more elected".

The government, for its part, has decided to respond to this mobilization by resuming its means of communication. With a quite relative address... After a first tribune of Manuel Valls on Facebook, the executive launched Thursday, February 25 a Twitter account dedicated to the law. His first message? "Hello Twitter, I'm the #LoiTravail project. People talk a lot about me but they don't know me well. How about we get to know each other?"

The initiative did not take long to be parodied on the social network, testifying to growing citizen mobilization.

"The web is accessible to all citizens and goes faster than all the positions of the unions: thanks to it, the power of protest can be found directly in the hands of the legislator",  explains the director of Change.org France. If this is not yet the case for the petition against the El Khomri bill, it has been for the platform's two previous successful petitions. That of the journalist Elise lucet, against the European directive on trade secrets, has collected 507.000 signatures to date and has enabled "many amendments to the margin".

As for the petition asking for the pardon of Jacqueline Sauvage, which had obtained the support of 435.972 signatories, she "cheek, assures Benjamin des Gachons, a central role in the decision of François Hollande, who said he heard the mobilization of citizens during a trip abroad".

source: WeDemain.fr

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