French unions have vowed to bring France to a standstill in a new round of strikes on 7 March, as they continue to battle President Emmanuel Macron’s contested reforms to the pension system. It is the sixth day of strikes and protests since the year began, and promises to be one of the biggest yet.
Six weeks, five strikes and countless hours of debate after the proposals were unveiled, both sides are digging in.
Macron this week said his plans to raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64 and increase the number of years people must pay into the system before they can draw a pension were simply common sense.
“On the whole people know that they must work a bit longer on average, everyone, otherwise we will no longer be able to properly finance our pensions,” the president said in his first meet-and-greet in weeks.
It came during a lull in the industrial action that has roiled France since the end of January – but that doesn’t mean that French unions have given up the battle.
Tactical pause
The last three cross-sector strikes and demonstrations came within 10 days of each other, on 7, 11 and 16 February.
The last of these saw lower mobilisation, as many schools closed for holidays and fewer teachers and transport workers went on strike.
There is also the danger of fatigue – that too much disruption, too close together, could cost the unions public goodwill. Their approval rating currently stands at 47 percent, according to a poll for RTL radio released this week, three points higher than in early February but still a way off resounding support.
The decision to put off the next strike until 7 March is a tactical one: it will come just after the last French schools have returned from their winter break, with less risk of disrupting vacations.
If the protests can match or even beat the roughly 1.3 million people officially said to have taken part in the biggest demonstrations to date, after nearly three weeks without action, it will also allow unions to argue that their case has staying power.
And it “leaves a bit of time” for legislators to react, according to Laurent Berger, head of France’s biggest union, the CFDT.
The upcoming strike will be the first since the pension reform bill went to the Senate, after a fractious debate in the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, ended last week without reaching a vote.
The upper house is due to start debating the reforms on 27 February, before a joint commission of the two chambers must agree on a final version of the bill on 15 March.
‘Everything must stop everywhere’
The closer that deadline looms, the harder unions have promised to fight.
Pierre Martinez, head of the hard-line CGT union, has called for strikes to be “harder, more numerous, bigger and rolling”, while the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, declared: “On 7 March, we block everything. Everything must stop everywhere.”
But Berger, whose CFDT union is more moderate than some of its allies, has stressed that the joint mobilisation calls neither for a general strike nor one lasting more than 24 hours (though individual unions can decide to walk out for longer).
“We’re calling for the country to be brought to a halt, which is different from a blockade. On 7 March we need action that’s dignified and respectful, but that takes it up a notch,” he told Europe 1 radio earlier this week.
The day is likely to test the movement’s approach: whether to stick to one-day actions, or resort to more disruptive rolling strikes.
Multi-day mobilisation
The strikes are set to go over a day to some extent, since unions representing the chemical sector, including workers at oil refineries, have called for rolling strikes from 6 March onwards.
Strike notices for waste collectors and Paris public transport workers, who are due to start striking on 7 March, are also liable to be renewed in the days following.
Meanwhile several unions have indicated that they plan some form of protest to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8 March.
Working women – who are more likely to take time out to raise children – are set to be especially affected by the proposal to increase the minimum contribution period, which the government itself has calculated will oblige women to postpone their retirement age for longer, on average, than men.
And while teachers have so far said they will only strike on 7 March, youth movements have called for university and high-school students to walk out on 9 March to highlight the reforms’ impact on young people.
But no dates for further cross-sector national strikes have been set – yet. That too will depend on what happens on 7 March.
