It is not a convergence of struggles, but rather a collision of anger: at the beginning of the month, the Lot-et-Garonne Rural Coordination called for rail freight to be blocked from November 19. The SNCF unions perhaps did not pay attention to this: they then announced a first strike from November 20 to 22, accompanied by a notice of indefinite strike from December 11, which could continue until Christmas vacation. The railway workers are mobilizing against the “discontinuity plan” to which Fret SNCF is forced to avoid liquidation: this dismantling responds to an injunction from the European Commission, which accuses France of having granted anti-competitive aid to a public company, and had was decided after negotiation by the Borne government.
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But other professions are also mobilizing: airline pilots protested this Thursday against the increase in taxes on air transport, in a strike that was ultimately little attended. Mobilization will certainly be stronger in the public service, which plans “a day of action, rallies, demonstrations and strikes throughout the country” on December 5, at the call of the unions who denounce the budgetary restrictions and the introduction of three days of waiting for sick leave. Another profession mobilized, medical biologists, who threatened to close their laboratories from December 23 to 31, to demand the reopening of negotiations with Health Insurance for their lower prices.
Overseas, crises – social but not only – also persist in the Antilles and New Caledonia. In mainland France, other movements could follow, because the red lights are lighting up one after the other: after Michelin and Auchan, job cuts will multiply, warn unions of employees and employers alike. The ministers concerned, moreover, predict difficult times ahead.
Business failures are at their highest level in ten years
The automobile industry and its subcontractors are preparing for a blood loss caused by the planned end of thermal cars; chemicals and mass distribution will also suffer; real estate is in deep crisis… So many jobs are threatened, which no longer only concern small businesses: business failures are at their highest in ten years, victims mainly of the rise in production costs – labor costs. energy in the lead – but also the post-Covid bill and the drop in consumer demand, weighed down by inflation.
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