A call for a massive strike by civil servants “against the contempt of the government”, this Thursday, December 5 in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, while the government of Michel Barnier is on the verge of censorship. The mobilization was maintained despite the political context, at the call of the majority of trade union organizations. Demonstrations are planned for the morning in Arras, Cambrai, Marcq-en-Barœul, Calais, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dunkirk. In the afternoon, the demonstrators were called to converge in Lille, Porte de Paris, with an appointment given at 2:30 p.m.
The trigger for this mobilization is the plan to fight “against the absenteeism of civil servants” unveiled by the Minister of the Civil Service Guillaume Kasbarian, for achieve 1.2 billion euros in savings. Inside, the government proposes a change to three waiting days rather than just one for agents, or even a 10% reduction in their remuneration in the event of sick leave. “This means a reduction in net salary on the pay slip, which can be very significant since it is deducted from the gross. We go up very very quickly to several hundred euros“, explains Catherine Piécuche, academic secretary of the FSU in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais.
7 teachers out of 10 strikers in primary schools in the North
Teachers also denounce the nearly “4,000 job cuts” in education planned in the 2025 budget, or even the non-payment of the Individual Purchasing Power Guarantee (Gipa). According to the FSU-SNUipp, a first-level union, more than 60% of school teachers are on strike in Pas-de-Calais, with “dozens of schools closed” in the department. In Boulogne-sur-Mer, the City announces the partial closure of two nurseries and nine schools, with 35 classes closed out of 86, as well as the total closure of eight schools.
In the North, 70% of teachers are announced to be on strike, with 90 schools completely closed, including at least 32 in Lille, not counting disruptions in canteens or after-school care for partially open primary schools. HAS Lille, the 79 municipal schools are impacted, including 75 nursery and elementary schools in the City with at least 25% of teachers on strike. 25 schools will not have after-school care in the morning, 39 will not have it at lunchtime and 24 will not have it in the evening. Four municipal daycare centers will be partially open, La Capucine, La Poussinière, Les Marmottes and Crépin Roland. The Murie Curie nursery is completely closed.
In the middle and high schools of the two departments, the FSU is counting on at least one in two teachers on strike. The mobilization promises to be even stronger than in January 2022 according to the unions, “it was at the time of the controversy over Jean Michel Blanquer's Ibiza protocol“, recalls Alain Talleu, co-secretaries of the FSU-SNUipp du Nord.
Strike in hospitals and airports
Anger is also brewing among hospital staff. “They are picking our pockets,” says Matthieu Collart, SMIC – CGT general secretary at the Lille CHRU. The CGT calls for a strike in the thirteen hospital centers of Pas-de-Calais. “We were gods and now we are lazy“, squeaks Frédéric Bourgeois, general secretary of the CGT Health and Social Action 62.
Concerning train transport, the SNCF will only be mobilized from Wednesday December 11. On the other hand at Lille airport, air traffic controllers go on strike from 8 p.m. this Thursday, until 7 a.m. Friday. “Without a control tower, nothing flies in the sky“, indicates the airport. Seven flights are impacted arriving and departing from Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse. Passengers are invited to contact their airline for any information regarding their trip.
Even if this mobilization promises to be very sustained, an FSU unionist from the North confides that several people wanting to strike, some of them for the first time, have called worried. With the government in the hot seat, they fear lose a day's salary for nothing“while everyone counts their pennies“.
Details of the events in Nord and Pas-de-Calais
- Arras, 9:30 a.m., Train station
- Boulogne, 9:30 a.m., Town Hall
- Calais, 9:30 a.m., sub-prefecture
- Dunkirk, 10 a.m. Place Jean Bart
- Marcq-en-Baroeul: Gathering in front of Kernanec high school 10 a.m.
- Cambrai 11 a.m. sub-prefecture
- Lille, 2:30 p.m., Porte de Paris
