STRIKES MARCH. The next national strike day is announced for March 7. The inter-union calls for “putting France to a halt” and the CGT defends renewable strikes. What are the next mobilization dates?
[Mis à jour le 27 février 2023 à 12h45] The unions have slowed the pace of mobilizations, but they intend to come back stronger against the pension reform. The next big meeting, that of the strike of March 7, is approaching but until then rallies must be organized punctually. The inter-union calls on opponents of the bill to gather in front of the Senate on Monday, February 27 for a meeting, the day before the text arrives at the Luxembourg Palace. A symbolic mobilization supposed to disrupt the debates and make the executive waver.
Until March 7, several meetings are planned at the initiative of unions or political parties. The goal? Raise the pressure before the “strong day of mobilization” that must be the sixth strike against the pension reform. The inter-union, including the CGT and the CFDT, hopes to do better than January 31, which brought 1.27 million demonstrators to the streets. But if the days of strike are linked, the government refuses to bow down. The Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt may recognize the extent of the mobilizations and wait for “a difficult day” on March 7, he calls to avoid blockages and above all refuses to abandon the text which would be an “unfair” act and would amount to ” endanger the pension system” according to him. Just as stubborn, the intersyndicale promised to “put France on hold in all sectors” if “the government and parliamentarians remain deaf to popular protest”. What should we expect for the rest of the movement during the month of March?
Tuesday, March 7 is the next big meeting for the unions for the fight against pension reform. The inter-union calls in a press release to “put France on hold in all sectors” for this day. If the question of a hardening of the movement with renewable strikes is not unanimous among the various organizations of the inter-union, the unions of certain sectors have already called for the renewable strike from March 7th. But the CGT is the only organization to call for a renewable strike, following the example of its branch of the RATPutilities and transportation.
Another point must still be clarified by the strike of March 7: that of blockages. For Philippe Martinez, secretary general of the CGT, there is no doubt that the mobilization must block the country, in particular the refineries and the power stations, while on the side of the CFDT, Laurent Berger supports the shutdown of the country but dissociates itself from blocking initiatives, ensuring that it sees a major difference between the two actions.
In a press release published on February 11, the intersyndicale wrote that it “will seize March 8, the international day of struggle for women’s rights, to highlight the major social injustice of this reform against women”. A call for “the feminist strike” has since been launched on the site grevefeministe.fr.
“We are calling for a feminist strike to win equality at work and in our lives, to guarantee our economic independence. In France, the government is once again attacking women head-on with a pension reform that will hit them hard. At the heart of the fight against this reform, March 8 is an opportunity to bring the situation and demands of women to the forefront and to amplify the mobilization”, can we read on this call which has was signed by many feminist associations, but also by trade unions such as the CGT or the Union Syndicale Solidaires. It remains to be seen how this call will translate in terms of walkouts and demonstrations.
13 youth organizations, including the student unions Unef, Alternative and Fage, or the militant organizations Les Jeunes Socialistes, Les Jeunes Ecologistes and Les Jeunes Insoumis, are calling for a “day of action and mobilization of youth on 9 march to denounce and highlight the impact of the reform on young people and impose real social protection for young people”, in a joint press release published on February 16. Young people are also called upon to participate in the mobilization days on March 7 and 8. Until then, however, there is no question for young people to reduce the pressure. The action plan of the high school and student organizations is simple: weekly actions organized every Thursday until March 7 before the mobilization day of March 9.
The strikes are set to last and especially to extend until March, because the hardened mobilizations announced from March 7 should call for others. Until then, a few trade union or political rallies and meetings are planned as on February 27 with two meetings: that of the unions set at 5 p.m. in front of the Senate and that given by the Nupes at 7 p.m. in Amiens in the present of François Ruffin (LFI), Olivier Faure (PS), Marine Tondelier (EELV) and Ian Brossat (PCF). Still, the mobilizations have been paused since February 16, a day of strike which had marked time with 440,000 demonstrators are 1.27 million previously, according to the police.
This break, however, made it possible to give the workers some respite and to consider a – perhaps – unprecedented mobilization at the next meeting and those that will follow. To know the rest of the social calendar, very busy since the beginning of 2023, we will surely have to wait for the mobilization day of March 7 and an inter-union meeting. Unless, to remobilize the troops and impose themselves against the government, the unions wish to anticipate and organize the struggle over time by announcing new days of mobilization in advance.