Recalling that “this was already the case in December during the holidays with a strike by part of the SNCF”, he deplored the timing of this strike, at a time when the French “want to go on holiday” and can “return to their place of work” after two years of pandemic.
To the strikers who say they are not heard by the management on wages, Gabriel Attal argued that “there is a social dialogue” and that “things have been put on the table by the SNCF and the RATP”, with “strong measures for wages”.
He argued that “an average salary increase of 2.7% (in 2022 as proposed by RATP management, editor’s note), is higher than what many French people see” on their payslips , and that “a significant part of the employees will have an increase greater than that, because they have seniority or more exposed functions”.
But according to the unions, the general management of the public company has proposed for the current year an increase of 0.4% “to sprinkle in various social measures”.
Gabriel Attal also recalled that during the Covid epidemic, bonuses were paid, “between 300 and 600 euros to the SNCF” and “1,000 euros for the RATP”.
“We must give dialogue a chance, continue to discuss rather than impact the French who wish to be able to live as normally as possible, even more after the two years we have just lived”, further urged Gabriel Attal.