Public employees are mobilizing in France on Thursday, December 5 for a day of action and strike at the call of public service unions in order to open a social front in the midst of a political crisis, the day after the fall of Michel’s government Barnier on a motion of censure adopted by the left and the National Rally. After the railway workers and farmers, the executive is preparing for a new notice of social storm. On the other hand, the unions must take up the challenge of mobilization and unite their troops in the face of a government that has now resigned, and in the face of the tacit abandonment of the measures they denounce.
Despite the political unknown, this day should make it possible to launch an “alert on the deterioration of working conditions and remuneration towards the future government and parliamentarians who will have to draft the next finance laws for 2025”, declares Mylène Jacquot to AFP, general secretary of the CFDT Civil Service.
“At least 50% of strikers in middle and high schools”
Dozens of rallies are planned in France at the call of a broad inter-union movement, particularly in Paris, near the Ministry of Economy and Finance. A press point for the inter-union (CGT, CFDT, UNSA, FSU, CFE-CGC, Solidaires and FA-FP) is planned on site at 1:00 p.m., in the presence of the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet. A procession must then set off towards Place d’Italie.
The education sector should be particularly mobilized, with disruptions expected in schools, but there will also be some in transport. The FSU-Snuipp, the majority union in primary education, notably foresees “65% of strikers” in schools and up to “78% of strikers and more than 300 schools closed in Seine-Saint-Denis”, while the Snes- FSU, the main secondary school union, is counting on “at least 50% of strikers in middle and high schools”.
On the sky side, civil aviation has asked airlines to reduce their flight programs for the day, and in Lille, the airport will remain closed from Thursday evening 8:00 p.m. to Friday 7:00 a.m., airport management indicated.
Breakdown of social dialogue
The announcement at the end of October by the resigning government of a plan to combat “absenteeism” of civil servants to generate 1.2 billion euros in savings has gradually strained relations between the agents’ unions and the resigning minister. of the Civil Service, Guillaume Kasbarian, before leading to a breakdown in social dialogue. The government justified these provisions by the need to make “savings” to improve public finances at half mast and reduce the deficit from 6.1% expected in 2024 to 5% of GDP in 2025.
The unions demanded in particular that he renounce three measures which crystallized the anger of the agents: the passage of one to three days of waiting for sick civil servants, the reduction from 100% to 90% of the remuneration in the event of stoppage illness, and the non-renewal of payment of a bonus to support purchasing power.
More than seven months after the last social movement – little followed – by civil servants, “we started on something much bigger on Thursday”, according to Luc Farré, secretary general of the UNSA civil service. His organization decided in mid-November to no longer sit in the “social dialogue bodies chaired by the minister”.