Almost three weeks after the start of the first strikes in French refineries, the movement seems to be spreading. “The question of the strike must be debated in all companies” because “the social anger which is expressed in the country is legitimate”, retorts this Friday the secretary general of the CGT Philippe Martinez in the newspaper l’Humanité.
Since the first requisition of four striking employees at the ExxonMobil refinery depot in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime), Wednesday, October 12, the tone has risen on the union side.
Faced with the first requisitions of employees requested by the government, Philippe Martinez reacted quickly, Thursday morning, on BFM-TV, believing that the power in place “was doing something stupid”. Supported by Force Ouvrière, which had nevertheless distanced itself for several months from the CGT, the inter-union called for a strike on Tuesday, October 18, during a day of interprofessional action for “the increase in wages and the defense of the right to strike” also alongside the FSU, Solidaires and four movements representing young people (FIDL, MNL, UNEF, Voix lycéenne). Railway workers, civil servants, employees in nuclear power plants… Several sectors are preparing to join the national mobilization movement.
In addition to the fuel sector, points of tension have appeared in the energy sector. For the past few weeks, work stoppages, against a backdrop of wage demands and taking inflation into account, have disrupted the activity of several nuclear power plants in Tricastin (Drôme), Cruas (Ardèche), Bugey (Ain) and Cattenom ( Moselle). The strikes could cause delays in the work prior to the restart of certain reactors and, in the long run, complicate the task of EDF to avoid power cuts during the winter.
Since Thursday, the Gravelines power plant (North), the most powerful in Western Europe, has joined the movement, under the impetus of FO and the CGT. They are demanding a 5% increase in their gross salary, while a branch agreement providing for a 3.6% increase is subject to signature until Monday. The CGT Energy Federation has called for the strike for wages to be extended to all companies in the sector. A mobilization is already underway in the gas storages of Engie, she assured, promising the follow-up in the follow-up of the national interprofessional movement Tuesday, October 18.
Metro, bus, train and tram traffic is also likely to be disrupted on Tuesday, with the RATP calling to join the movement. “We are mobilizing for wage increases, on the issue of pension reform and to defend the right to strike, called into question by government decisions” of requisitioning of personnel in refineries, said Vincent Gautheron, secretary general, on franceinfo. of the CGT RATP, the majority union.
At the SNCF, employees of the Landy technicentre, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), voted for a renewable strike from Monday, according to the trade unionist Sud-Rail Paris Nord Anasse Kazib. “The railway workers are ready to strike with the refiners,” he tweeted on Thursday. For its part, the CGT-Cheminots, the first representative union at the SNCF, also calls for a day of strike on Tuesday, to demand wage increases and protest against requisitions in the energy sector. “We are asking the unions to organize general site meetings on October 18 and we are not ruling out any scenario for the conduct of the action,” CGT-Cheminots secretary general Laurent Brun told AFP on Thursday. .
Notices have also been filed for the State civil service, the territorial civil service and the hospital civil service. The first public service union, the UFSE-CGT, called for a strike on Tuesday. He wishes “to build with the personnel the widest possible participation in the interprofessional day of strike and demonstration (…) for the defense of the right to strike, the increase in wages and our rights to retirement”. In a separate statement, the Public Services Federation called for the strike “to support the actions decided by the strikers in the refineries, to reaffirm our wage demands (10% increase in the index point immediately), our rejection of the pension reform wanted by Macron and our attachment to the right to strike and trade union freedoms”.
If the index point for civil servants (3.5% on July 1), pensions (4% for the basic scheme in September) and the minimum wage have been revalued to take inflation into account, the rise in prices ( 5.6% in September, according to INSEE) continues to eat into the purchasing power of the French. The tariff shields on gas or electricity as well as the Macron bonus from which certain employees benefit are not enough to alleviate the concerns.
A march “against government inaction” and “against high cost of living and climate inaction” is thus organized on Sunday, October 16 at the initiative of Nupes (Europe Ecology – The Greens, La France insoumise, the French Communist Party, the Socialist Party). “What makes it possible to produce these social advances are these mobilizations, explained Clémentine Autain, deputy La France insoumise (LFI) for Seine-Saint-Denis, Thursday, on France 2, referring to the year 1936 and the Grenelle agreements. after May-1968. Of course the hour of arm wrestling has come.”
