The government facing the beginnings of a social crisis. While Michelin announced the elimination of 1,250 positions and the Auchan group the disappearance of 2,400 jobs, leading to anger and mobilization of employees, the executive is also facing numerous calls for strikes for the coming weeks.
“Economic conditions are tightening noticeably“, recognized the Minister of Labor Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, who reported “an acceleration in the number of collective procedures opened by companies in difficulty”. “There will probably be announcements of site closures in the coming weeks and months“, Minister of Industry Marc Ferracci had already warned on Saturday.
In just a few days, and in a sluggish economic context and against a backdrop of budgetary austerity for 2025, the government has seen an increase in calls for strikes for November and December in France. Objective: to protest against social plans and against the consequences of a draft budget – still under discussion in Parliament – which provides for 60 billion euros in budgetary effort to straighten out the public accounts. franceinfo takes stock.
Transport on strike
The mobilization will begin Thursday, November 14 at the airports. The very powerful national union of airline pilots is calling on all employees in the airline sector to stop working to oppose the increase in the tax on plane tickets.
This government proposal for the 2025 budget was adopted by the deputies and should bring in one billion euros to the State. Flights to overseas and Corsica are not affected. The boss of Air France himself declared himself against this measure which the pilots' union accuses of ultimately leading to the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs.
All SNCF unions have also filed a strike notice which runs from Wednesday November 20 to Friday 22. Another unlimited and renewable notice from December 11 has also been filed to start ten days before the Christmas holidays. The railway workers are calling for a moratorium on the announced dismantling of Freight.
Tractors out again
Farmers are also once again calling for mobilization. Some have already done so locally for several weeks, but this time the main agricultural unions – FNSEA and Young Farmers – are promising a new national mobilization a priori from Monday November 18.
Like the other representative unions Rural Coordination and Peasant Confederation, they oppose the proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, South American countries. They denounce unfair competition and an attack on their production model. The context is all the more flammable as farmers believe they have not received the answers commensurate with the anger they expressed last winter. The measures remain insufficient according to them. Anger exacerbated this year by poor harvests and diseases on farms.
Officials prepare
Two of the main civil service unions are also preparing a strike. The CGT and Force Ouvrière are against the government's plan to increase the waiting period from one to three days in the event of sick leave. The movement could begin at the beginning of December. The CGT is also concerned about employment in general and calls on employees to mobilize on December 12.
General Secretary Sophie Binet predicts a “violent bleeding in the industrial sector” with at least 150,000 jobs doomed to disappearance according to her. Industry Minister Marc Ferracci, for his part, admitted to expecting further factory closures.
Threat of a “shutdown” in laboratories
Four unions representing medical biologists also called on Thursday for Health Insurance to reopen negotiations on their rates, recently revised downwards, otherwise threatening a “shutdown“, i.e. the closure of medical analysis laboratories from December 23 to 31 inclusive.
