New strike Thursday, April 6, 2023: the protest against the pension reform does not go out. What disturbances should we expect?
The social movement continues in April. The unions united in protesting the pension reform announced on March 28 that a new day of strike would be organized on Thursday April 6, 2023. This eleventh day of strike comes as the intersyndicale condemned “the absence of response” from the government and Emmanuel Macron. What to expect this Thursday, April 6? Concretely, the intersyndicale calls in a press release “for local union rallies defined locally and for a new big day of strikes and demonstrations on Thursday April 6 everywhere in the country”.
In their joint statement, the unions add: “After two months of an exemplary and unprecedented social movement for 50 years, very broadly supported by the population, and a chaotic parliamentary course, the lack of response from the executive has led to a tense situation in the country which worries us very much. […] By not responding to the request for withdrawal, by using 49.3, the executive has chosen to accentuate the democratic and social crisis. However, from the start, the trade union and youth organizations had warned the executive of the risk of social explosion that this unjust, unjustified and brutal reform could cause.
The transport sector, unsurprisingly, will continue the renewable strike and will be mobilized for the eleventh act of the social movement against the pension reform, on Thursday March 6. There RATP and the SNCF will give their forecasts of disturbances around April 4.
Air, maritime and road transport on strike?
If rail transport has been systematically mobilized during strike days since the start of the social movement against pension reform, other sectors tend to follow their example. In the air sector in particular, in which a strike by controllers is raging, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation could announce new flight cancellations, due to the appeal of the inter-union.
After a three-week strike against the pension reform, the movement was suspended on March 28. But the agents of the waste treatment sector have not decided to put an end to the mobilization. “We need to discuss again with the agents of the waste and sanitation sector of the city of Paris in order to go back to the strike stronger (…), because we have almost no more strikers”, indicated the CGT- FTDNEEA, unions of garbage collectors, sewer workers, dumpster drivers in Paris.
The strike movement continues in the oil sector and the strike of April 6 March should be followed with blockades in refineries and fuel depots in France. These shutdowns of all or part of the production generate situations of lack of fuel, but in a limited way. If the State has made requisitions in certain places, in particular at the Fos-sur-Mer oil depot (Bouches-du-Rhône) and at the Gonfreville-l’Orcher refinery (Seine-Maritime), the walkouts continue in other places, and could still be effective at the beginning of April.
In the education sector, the SNUipp-FSU expects to see many more teachers from primary schools to strike on April 6, the forecasts will be refined around April 4. The high school inter-union, made up of the unions FIDL, the Voix lycéenne and the Mouvement national lycée should be mobilized.