Teachers, railway workers, hospital staff … on the streets to demand salary increases

For the third Thursday in a row, the CGT, FO, FSU and Solidaires unions are calling for a day of national mobilization on January 27. The inter-union, as well as the youth organizations Fidl, MNL, LVL and UNEF called on employees from all sectors of activity (public and private) to strike and demonstrate. Pointing the finger “the social and economic context, the increases in basic necessities, energy and food and, ultimately, the cost of living for everyone, young people, working people, job seekers and retirees“, they demand an increase in wages and retirement pensions, better working conditions, the abandonment of the unemployment insurance reform as well as recruitment and a strengthening of the health protocol in education.

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The first processions of demonstrators set off on Thursday, at the call of trade unions and youth organizations, to demand wage increases in a context of a resurgence of the question of purchasing power, a few weeks before the presidential. Some 170 rallies and parades are planned at the call of the CGT, FO, FSU and Solidaires unions, said Thursday the number one of the CGT, Philippe Martinez. This day “is the convergence of all the mobilizations” since several weeks “in all sectors“, he said during a press briefing at the Bastille, the CGT citing industry, agri-food, trade, or the public service.

“ Today in the street, and tomorrow we continue! chanted demonstrators from the procession of the Parisian demonstration. Among them, Olivier, red and white vest in the colors of his union and flag in one hand. “ After 40 years in the business, I earn 2000 euros net per month. After 40 years, you realize! asserts the caregiver close to sixty. “ There is clearly a problem. This is why we are asking for the unfreezing of the index point and the Smic at 2,000 euros he adds. For him, “ from the beginning to the end of a career, the salary must double “.

Maya, 45, marches under the banner of the first secondary union, the SNES-FSU. She is a French and theater teacher in a Parisian high school. Beyond a “ catastrophic crisis management “, she regrets that” salaries have not kept up with the rise in the cost of living “. She also asserts, witness the break-up of the French education system “, and specifies to worry especially for his pupils and young people in general.

A little further, Anne-Sophie, professor of physical sciences in a college, demonstrates with two of her friends. Less radical than her colleague, she is still angry. “ Compared to 10 years ago, it’s as if we lost 2 months of salary per year today she explains. What Anne-Sophie wants is a salary increase “ without compensation “.

Place de la Bastille, Léa, a 19-year-old student, watches the last demonstrators rush towards the rue de Lyon. She wears no vest, no flag, no sticker stuck on her clothes. “ I did not come to demonstrate she explains. Its presence is even due to chance, in reality. But she also came back up: Me, it’s my teacher who exasperates me! I was supposed to have 3 hours of lessons with him this afternoon and he didn’t even bother to tell us. I moved for nothing. Let him demonstrate, very well, but he could at least warn us! It’s the least we can do, and we have nothing to do with their problems… »

Several thousand people in Marseille

“Today too many employees in activity, too many pensioners are in a situation where it is difficult to find accommodation, to heat themselves more difficult, to move around (…) and the answer cannot be substitutes, bandages at the last moment“, Estimated Yves Veyrier (FO). The CGT thinksdo much more than october 5“, told AFP Céline Verzeletti, confederal leader. This day of interprofessional mobilization brought together 85,400 people according to the Ministry of the Interior, more than 160,000 according to the CGT. In Marseille, in the morning, several thousand people – 2,500, according to the police headquarters – set off from the Old Port, most waving CGT flags. Dockers, hospital staff, railway workers, or retirees were in the procession Teachers, already in the street on January 13 and 20 to protest against the management of the Covid-19 health crisis at school, were also mobilized. At the end of the morning, the Ministry of Education reported between 8 and 9% of strikers in the first and second degree.

In Paris, demonstrators began to gather around noon at Place de la Bastille for a “meeting concert“, before setting off around 2:00 p.m. in the direction of Bercy. Activists-caregivers, teachers or even educators – took turns at the microphone to say “stop social regression“, or emphasize that “bills are risingbut not salaries. Political figures were to take part in the demonstration, including presidential candidates Fabien Roussel (PCF), Yannick Jadot (EELV) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), at a time when polls put voters’ concerns at the top of the issue of purchasing power.

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The organizers are calling for an increase in the minimum wage and the index point for civil servants, and more generally of all salaries, allowances and retirement pensions, in a context of high inflation (+2.8% over one year in December) and record dividends. “There are declarations of good intentions on the part of the government but we see that in the branches it gets stuck“. (…) “Employees demand their due“, estimated Philippe Martinez. “We are here to say that we need a shock of equality in this country, that it is not possible to hold a discourse on unemployment which is falling but that at the same time the working poor, fuel poverty, precariousness food multiply“Said the co-delegate general of Solidaires Simon Duteil to AFP.

The Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne, pleaded for her part on CNews Thursday that the government has been very attentive to purchasing power since the start of the five-year term“. And the Prime Minister must receive the social partners for bilateral talks by mid-February, as he has done on several occasions since July 2020, we learned from Matignon.“In addition to topics such as the progress of the social agenda launched 18 months ago, issues of concern to the social partners will be discussed”. The number one of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, also insists on the need to raise wages, arguing that employers must understand that “now we have to give back a little» . But the first French union did not join forces with the intersyndicale on Thursday, because the tote does not work. The CFDT has decided to organize on February 3 “a march of essential workers“. The organizers of Thursday’s mobilization will decide Friday morning on the continuation of the movement, to which Unsa and CFE-CGC have announced their arrival. “The union arc seems to widen“, rejoiced with AFP Céline Verzeletti.

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Disruptions in transport

As far as transport is concerned, the CGT Cheminots and SUD-Rail unions have filed a strike notice from Wednesday 7 p.m. to Friday 8 a.m. They call for a massive mobilization within the SNCF and the RATP. If no disruption of the metro lines is planned in Paris for the moment, in Ile-de-France, one in three trains runs on the RER B North line, whose operation is shared with the RATP. On the RER A, C, D and line H of the Transilien, the offer is three trains out of four. The service is normal or almost normal on all the other RER or Transilien lines. On the TER side, “the level of offer will vary according to the regions and the service will be provided at 80% at the national level against 90% currently“, had indicated the SNCF. The entire TGV service is provided normally.

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The organizers of Thursday’s mobilization will decide Friday morning on the continuation of the movement, to which Unsa and CFE-CGC have announced their arrival. The CFDT, which is not one of the unions that called for participation in the mobilization on Thursday, decided to organize February 3 “a march of essential workers», which should bring together several hundred people in the west of Paris.