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in collaboration with
Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
Medical validation:
December 22, 2022
In the United Kingdom, British nurses and paramedics stopped work on Wednesday to demand a rise in their wages. Should we expect the same protest movement in France? Answers.
Anger is brewing in the UK. On Wednesday, British paramedics joined striking nurses in demanding higher wages in the face of soaring prices. A mobilization which follows multiple dysfunctions of the English system… and which echoes the difficulties encountered in France.
Less 20% purchasing power since 2010
After a first day of strike in mid-December, the nurses took to the streets again on Tuesday.
A historic mobilization – the first for 106 years – which British paramedics quickly joined on Wednesday. And for good reason: the cost of living crisis continues to worsen.
The staff “has taken a 20% pay cut in the past 10 years“, marked by major austerity cures.”They can’t afford to go on like this anymore“says Lib Whitfield, a local representative of the GMB union.
Nurses and paramedics are supported by public opinion. Indeed, according to a YouGov poll released on Tuesday, two-thirds of Britons support the strikes of nurses, and 63% that of paramedics.
Is such a movement possible in France?
Is a strike movement of such magnitude possible in France? Two French emergency doctors share a bitter observation on the situation of the hospital in France.
“Going on strike is a trade union right. Except that in France, we are assigned, we cannot strike care. Result: the strikes are not bearing fruit and the health system is in bad shape while we are in the same state of decrepitude as our British colleagues“, regrets Dr. Kierzek.
For his part, Christophe Prudhomme, emergency doctor at Samu 93 and spokesperson for the Association of Emergency Physicians of France (AMUF) fears that the mobilization of medical personnel in France will be even more violent.
“We are witnessing real anger on the part of health personnel in France. And for good reason: the Ségur de la santé did not provide the desired answers. All the proposals have been rejected by successive governments and even more so by this one. Result: the work is more and more difficult, the resignations accumulate, the recognition is not there. Despite the Ségur, French nurses still earn less than their Mexican colleagues. It is therefore not excluded that we have in France a movement of the same type as in England… Except that it risks being much more violent and virulent. This time, the call for everyone’s responsibility will not work“, says the emergency doctor.