An end of the year under the sign of social mobilization: already confronted with social plans at Michelin and Auchan, the government must now face an increase in calls for strikes for November and December in France, in a poor economic context. buoyant and against a backdrop of budgetary austerity for 2025.
Airline pilots strike this Thursday
After the vote by deputies for an increase in taxation on air transport, the national union of airline pilots (SNPL), supported by five organizations including the cabin crew union, called on all employees in the airline sector to stop work and demonstrate this Thursday, November 14 in front of the National Assembly.
Four Transavia flights, or 2% of the program, are canceled this Thursday, we learned from the low-cost airline of the Air France-KLM group. Corsair, Air Caraibes and French Bee, but also easyJet and Air Austral, have not reported flight cancellations.
All the players in the aviation industry, from employee unions to the main employers’ organization, the National Federation of Aviation and its Trades (Fnam), and up to IATA, which brings together the vast majority of airlines in the world, denounced the aims of the French government. The latter, in search of funds to limit the budget deficit, wants to increase the taxation of air transport from France by a billion euros per year, via the tripling of the solidarity tax on plane tickets ( TSBA) and a higher contribution from business aviation passengers. “This project is an unprecedented attack on the airline sector in France, its jobs, its competitiveness and its sustainability,” they denounced.
Strike at SNCF from November 20
At the SNCF, the CGT-Cheminots, the Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots are calling not only for a strike from Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m. to Friday, November 22, 8 a.m., but also for a renewable strike from from Wednesday, December 11, 7 p.m. A social movement which could disrupt service during the Christmas holidays. Representatives of railway workers are calling for a moratorium on the dismantling of Fret SNCF, the division dedicated to rail freight (which will disappear on January 1 to be reborn in the form of two separate companies: Hexafret for freight transport, and Technis for maintenance locomotives), and protest against the terms of opening regional lines to competition.
The French State is thus reacting to a requirement from the European Commission, guardian of fair competition, to avoid a recovery procedure which could have led to the pure and simple liquidation of the company, which employs 5,000 employees. For Christmas in 2022, hundreds of TGVs were canceled, again due to a strike.
Anger of farmers, mobilization from November 18
On the side of farmers, anger is brewing again, less than a year after a movement which partly paralyzed the main roads in France. Symbolic actions have resumed in recent weeks and should increase after mid-November, notably at the call of the majority unions FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA). A new national mobilization is planned from Monday November 18, according to Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA.
Farmers, hit hard this year by poor wheat harvests and a renewed health crisis on livestock farms, are demanding to be able to make a living from their profession: they are waiting for clarity on loans guaranteed by the State. And they categorically refuse the signing of a free trade agreement negotiated between the EU and Latin American countries, Mercosur.
Call for strike in the civil service from November 18 to the end of the year
In the Civil Service also, two of the main unions, FO and the CGT, called for a “strike” after the failure of a meeting with Minister Guillaume Kasbarian, raising the possibility of mobilizations at the beginning of December. The Federal Union of State Unions CGT has filed a strike notice from November 18 to December 31 of the year 2024.
This follows the government’s announcements of savings on the Civil Service to the tune of 1.2 billion euros in the 2025 budget, in particular via two measures which have crystallized anger: the reduction from 100% to 90% of the compensation for sick leave for civil servants, and the introduction of three unpaid waiting days, instead of one currently, during these absences.
By congratulating Elon Musk on his appointment as head of a ministry of “governmental efficiency” on Wednesday, Guillaume Kasbarian had already attracted a volley of greenwood from the left political class and actors in the public sector, the day before an important meeting of the civil service inter-union which was to decide on the contours of a mobilization which could go as far as a “strike”. He notably declared that he “looked forward to sharing with (Elon Musk) best practices to combat excess bureaucracy, reduce paperwork, and rethink public organizations to improve the efficiency of public agents.”
Threat of strike by medical analysis laboratories at the end of December
Four unions representing medical biologists also called on Thursday for Health Insurance to reopen negotiations on their rates, recently revised downwards, otherwise threatening a “shutdown”, i.e. the closure of medical analysis laboratories from the 23rd to December 31 inclusive.
France Travail unions have also called for a strike on December 5. Finally, the CGT also called for “mobilizations for employment in all regions” on December 12.