Neither spectacular extension nor demobilization. The day of interprofessional action, which took place on Tuesday, October 18, to defend purchasing power and the right to strike, ended with a balance sheet relatively close to the previous one, on September 29.
As always for this type of event, the number of participants is a pretext for a battle between state services and unions. The Ministry of the Interior estimates that 107,000 people marched in the streets across the country (13,000 in the case of Paris); i.e. a slightly lower performance than that recorded three weeks ago. The CGT, it brandishes, unsurprisingly, much more flattering orders of magnitude: 300,000 women and men gathered on Tuesday, ” everywhere in France “including 70,000 in the capital, according to the confederal leadership.
Even if, in absolute value, these data are controversial, they suggest that the generalization of the struggles has not started at this stage. Which is not entirely surprising, given the improvisation that prevailed. The call for demonstrations had, in fact, been launched only five days earlier, by four employee unions (CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires) and by four organizations representing youth (FIDL, MNL, UNEF, Voix lycéenne). An initiative taken in the wake of the requisitions of employees of TotalEnergies, who had stopped working to obtain increases in their remuneration.
“Building a movement like this, quickly, is never easy”, explains Benoît Teste, the secretary general of the FSU, addressing journalists in the “head square” of the Parisian procession. The rate of strikers at national education “is not extraordinary” but he “isn’t that bad”, he adds. Vocational high schools are a special case: in these establishments, many teachers put down their pens to denounce a reform project synonymous – in their eyes – with submission to the immediate needs of the bosses.
Massive austerity
“We find that there are never enough people, but that doesn’t matter, we’re here anyway”, slips into a laugh Christine, 56, employed in the urban planning department of the city of Paris. Like many people who beat the pavement between the places of Italy and Vauban, she came to protest about her pay slip, abused by years of blocking the index point. “It is important that there is a general revaluation of purchasing power in Franceshe continues. It’s necessary that it moves. We feel that it’s quite explosive and that it takes very, very little for it to go well beyond what we see today. »
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