This May 1st, several events are organized in the region on the occasion of Labor Day. We take stock of the appointments.
This May 1st, dozens of demonstrations are organized in Occitania. From Perpignan to Nîmes, via Narbonne, Agde or Montpellier, the CGT has published its map gatherings.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators expected in France
Between 100,000 and 150,000 people are expected in the processions on both sides of France, note France info. In 2023, 800,000 people marched in the streets, in a particularly tense context of pension reform.
Among its demands this year, the CGT is calling for an increase in wages and social minimums and demanding “a just and lasting peace wherever war rages”.
Why are we demonstrating?
In France, May 1st is a public holiday. But on a broader scale, it is International Labor Day and the organization differs from one country to another.
Originally, the festival comes to us like so many others, from America, note Public life. On May 1, 1886, the unions demanded an 8-hour working day, on the occasion of the first day of the business accounting year: the “Moving day”. Demonstrations multiplied from this date, and some degenerated. In Chicago three days later, a worker lost his life, police officers were injured and five people were sentenced to death.
These tragedies were discussed during the congress of the Socialist International, organized in Paris in 1889. The American demonstrations were raised to the rank of symbol of the union struggle.
When in 1919, Parliament voted in favor of the eight-hour day in France, it chose to make May 1 the “Labour and Social Concord Day”.
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