France nationwide strike November 5 wage protests, Digi Mart USA News (France): A new day of coordinated union mobilization is taking shape across France, amid persistent tensions over purchasing power. Unions will take to the streets Thursday through strikes and demonstrations, seeking responses to their demands on wages, the latest step in a turbulent autumn of social unrest.
The action was announced in early October, following a public-sector mobilization on September 29, and is meant to bring together private- and public-sector employees as well as retirees. Demands cover jobs, wages, public services and industry.
Against a backdrop of inflation driven by the war in the Middle East, which stood at 3.4 percent year on year according to INSEE, union demands have centered on pay.
Two days before the mobilization, the government pointed to lower diesel prices at 6,000 of France’s 10,000 service stations, following the release of strategic fuel stocks. For three consecutive Saturdays, the movement against the high cost of living has grown from social media, borrowing the codes of the gilets jaunes and backed only by certain unions.
This Thursday, all the main workers’ organizations, including the supervisory-staff union CFE-CGC, which had initially been more reserved, are taking the lead.
Dissatisfied with the government’s first responses, high school and university students again organized protests and blockades at schools on Tuesday and will join the marches Thursday. The coordination of the gilets jaunes, which has played a central role in organizing cost-of-living protests since October 17, is calling on people to join the strike and blockades Thursday and to maintain pressure through Saturday, the announced date of the movement’s “Act IV.”
On Tuesday, a CGT map listed 244 demonstrations across France for Thursday. The SNCF rail operator expects traffic to be “disrupted” on most regional and Île-de-France lines and “slightly disrupted” for TGV high-speed trains.
In Paris, it remains unclear whether unions will be allowed to march through the city center, a route denied to organizers of the cost-of-living protests and to young people after the scenes of violence and looting that marked October 17 in several city centers. The Paris police prefecture had not yet responded as of Tuesday, while unions have requested a march from the Place de la Bastille to the Place de la Concorde.
In Toulouse, demonstrators were barred from the city center.
On the substance, the government, which has received union leaders since October 17, has suggested it could make a gesture on the minimum wage. Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou said Tuesday in the National Assembly that he hopes “the government, around November 5, will be able to present measures capable of restarting the wage dynamic in our country,” referring to the minimum wage and negotiations at sector and company level.
The CGT demands a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, while the CFDT, traditionally reluctant about wage boosts for fear of compressing the wage scale, calls for an increase of 100 euros net. The freeze on civil servants’ index point is also fueling union anger, as is the maintenance of business aid in sectors whose minimum pay falls below the minimum wage.
CFDT general secretary Marylise Léon said Tuesday from Lille: “I think that today, a company that refuses to negotiate should no longer benefit from a certain number of social contribution exemptions.”
Other measures described as “detestable” in the draft budget include the freeze on personalized housing aid (APL) and a waiting period before non-European foreigners receive certain allowances, according to Unsa deputy general secretary Dominique Corona. He suggested that, in a context of weak purchasing power, the strike rate may be lower than the “level of discontent.”
Solidaires is calling for the strike to continue beyond November 5, as does the gilets jaunes coordination, which intends to continue on Friday. On Saturday, the coordination has called for a rally at the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
“We will go whatever happens, even if it is banned,” and in that case, “we will call for massive civil disobedience for our freedoms,” said Benjamin Ball, a member of the coordination.
