From railway workers to airline pilots to farmers, many professions are expected to go on strike in the coming days.
Already faced with social plans at Michelin and Auchan, the government must face an increase in calls for strikes for November and December in France, in a sluggish economic context and against a backdrop of budgetary austerity for 2025.
Unions from several sectors have launched calls for strikes and mobilization for the coming weeks to protest against social plans and against the consequences of a draft budget – still under discussion in Parliament – which provides for 60 billion euros budgetary effort to redress public accounts in the red.
• Pilots union calls strike Thursday, November 14
The national union of airline pilots (SNPL) is calling for a strike and a rally late Thursday morning in front of the National Assembly after the vote by the deputies for an increase in taxation on air transport, a- it indicated Sunday. “Against the government's desire to take an additional billion per year from the airline sector, we are calling on pilots but also all employees in the airline sector to mobilize on November 14,” declared a spokesperson for the ultra-majority union at the pilots.
In a joint press release sent late Sunday, several other unions in the sector – UNSA transport, UNSA PNC, CFE-CGC FNEMA, UNAC, SNPNC-FO and FEETS-FO – announced that they called on “all employees in the airline sector to come and demonstrate their disagreement with this tax that is deadly for jobs before the National Assembly on November 14.”
“This project is an unprecedented attack on the airline sector in France, its jobs, its competitiveness and its sustainability,” they denounce.
• Mobilization of farmers in mid-November
On the side of farmers, anger is brewing again, less than a year after a movement which partly paralyzed the main roads in France. Symbolic actions have resumed in recent weeks and should increase after mid-November, notably at the call of the majority unions FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA).
Farmers, hit hard this year by poor wheat harvests and a renewed health crisis on livestock farms, are demanding to be able to make a living from their profession: they are waiting for clarity on loans guaranteed by the State. And they categorically refuse the signing of a free trade agreement negotiated between the EU and Latin American countries, Mercosur.
• Railway workers strike on November 21 then unlimited from December 11
All the SNCF unions called last Tuesday for a strike on Thursday, November 21, following a meeting with the management of the railway group to discuss the dismantling of Fret SNCF and the opening to competition: this will extend from Wednesday November 20 at 7 p.m. to Friday November 22 at 8 a.m. In a press release entitled “the time has come for conflict at the SNCF”, the CGT-Cheminots, the Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots warned that this day of strike is “an ultimatum” before “a longer and stronger strike movement in December” if the government and the SNCF do not respond to their demands.
On Saturday, all SNCF unions called for an indefinite strike from Wednesday December 11 to demand a moratorium against the announced dismantling of Fret SNCF and to protest against the terms of opening regional lines to competition. In a joint press release, the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots explain that given the lack of “inflection” from the group's management, the strike will be unlimited and renewable for periods of 24 hours starting Wednesday, December 11 at 7 p.m.
