Round a million folks took to the streets of France this Thursday, in line with figures from the Common Confederation of Labor (CGT), in protest in opposition to President Emmanuel Macron and his austerity insurance policies. This was the second main mobilization in latest days, after the relative success of the Bloquons tout! (“Let’s Block Every part!”) motion’s name for strikes and blockades final Wednesday, September 10.
The attraction for final week’s mobilization had spontaneously unfold on-line, earlier than actions have been organized by widespread assemblies held in lots of French cities and cities. Bloquons tout! had referred to as for the blocking of France’s transport routes in protest in opposition to the austerity price range offered by then prime minister François Bayrou.
The large police deployment final week (with eighty thousand officers, a report quantity) dismantled the blockades, however greater than 2 hundred thousand folks participated within the mobilization — a substantial success for a motion that had not existed just some months earlier. Although the unique name was launched by a small nationalist group, they weren’t concerned within the group of final week’s protests, the place the Left had probably the most distinguished position.
Essentially the most combative unions (the CGT and Solidaires) had supported the September 10 name. But, the Intersyndicale, which brings collectively all the main staff’ organizations, determined to name its day of mobilizations for this Thursday, September 18. By then, Bayrou and his price range had already been defeated within the Nationwide Meeting, he had been pressured to resign, and Macron had appointed a brand new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu. Nevertheless, the French responded to the unions’ name, satisfied that the brand new prime minister would change nothing about Macron’s insurance policies. In truth, Lecornu has begun negotiating a brand new price range based mostly on Bayrou’s, which envisioned €44 billion in cuts to social spending whereas rising funds for the navy.
The success of the September 18 demonstrations, during which Bloquons tout! activists additionally participated, reveals the depth of discontent with Macron’s insurance policies and of the political disaster that has gripped France since 2022. In accordance with a latest poll, greater than seven out of ten residents reject the austerity price range, and 64 p.c demand Macron’s resignation — an unprecedented state of affairs in a strongly presidential republic, the place the pinnacle of state’s direct electoral legitimacy is often thought-about untouchable. The query now’s how far this rising cycle of protests can go — and the way it may remodel a political state of affairs as we speak blocked by Macron’s willpower to cling to energy and to his anti-working-class insurance policies.
The union mobilization this Thursday was much like many different latest huge days of protest in France. The participation was appreciable however not record-breaking: in spite of everything, through the motion in opposition to the pension reform of 2023, the CGT estimated that as much as 3.5 million folks had taken to the streets in a single day, within the largest demonstration in French historical past.
The strike this Thursday significantly disrupted the Paris metro — with total strains closed — commuter trains, and a few branches of the general public sector, similar to training, with colleges of varied ranges shut down. Nevertheless, there was solely sporadic participation within the personal sector. That is the standard sample of strikes in France: though legally all staff have the correct to strike, few train it in personal corporations resulting from employer strain, low union presence, and the weak tradition of employee battle there.
The novelty of the September 18 mobilization, as in comparison with the motion over retirement advantages two and a half years in the past, lies within the present political context. The 2023 strikes passed off shortly after Macron’s reelection as president, when he nonetheless had the most important camp within the Nationwide Meeting behind him. This made it simpler for him to push by his pension cuts regardless of majority public opposition. Now, Macron is as weak as a president in France could be: he has solely a feeble minority authorities, and his prime ministers are toppled one after one other by a parliament during which the far proper and the assorted forces of the Left dominate.
Furthermore, a suggestions dynamic is rising between Bloquons tout! and the union motion. The unions — particularly the CGT, the second largest by membership and the primary reference level in most cycles of mobilization — have realized from their errors with the Gilets Jaunes (“yellow vests”, in reference to their high-visibility protester uniform).
That motion, which arose spontaneously in 2018, blocked France’s roads weekend after weekend for months and arranged huge demonstrations in entrance of the president’s Élysée Palace and the Nationwide Meeting, immediately difficult energy as a substitute of respecting the standard routes of union marches. This can be a symbolic element — however one which carries weight in France.
The Gilets Jaunes did handle to drive Macron to take some measures to enhance the buying energy of the working and center lessons — a larger success than the few concessions obtained by the union motion in opposition to the pension reform of 2023. The unions barely supported the Gilets Jaunes, nervous concerning the presence of far-right components and the dearth of union management over the mobilization. This time, CGT and Solidaires gave authorized backing to the sector-specific strikes this September 10 and celebrated the success of the Bloquons tout! motion.
On the union demonstration in Paris this Thursday, the presence of Bloquons tout! activists was felt. Alongside the extra radical commerce unionists, they demanded that union leaders name for an indefinite strike that would actually strain financial and political energy, as a substitute of the standard succession of remoted strike days and demonstrations — a failed technique within the 2023 pension reform motion. But it is usually clear that there isn’t a crimson button that union leaders can press to decree an indefinite common strike. In truth, it’s troublesome for them even to persuade the vast majority of staff to go on one-day strikes.
It’s potential that the interplay between the radicalism of Bloquons tout! and the unions’ mobilizing capability, in a local weather of regime disaster, could foster extra huge and radical types of protest able to actually pressuring Macron. Though there have been noteworthy demonstrations in small cities on September 18, it’s not clear but whether or not the brand new motion will be capable of combine the favored sectors from peri-urban and rural areas, who took to the streets with the yellow vests however are to date underrepresented within the present cycle of mobilizations.
The brand new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, is anticipated to fail in his try to barter a brand new price range with the right-wing Républicains and the center-left Parti Socialiste. If Lecornu can be censured by the Nationwide Meeting — as have been his three Macronite predecessors — the president could also be pressured to name one other spherical of early parliamentary elections.
Polls present a state of affairs much like that seen within the final such contest in summer time 2024: Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement Nationwide would win except the left-wing events have been to unite once more, which may enable this camp one other victory. The issue is that relations between France Insoumise (the primary left-wing drive), on the one hand, and the Socialists and the Greens, on the opposite, are at their lowest ebb. Whereas France Insoumise’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls for Macron’s resignation as the one approach out of the disaster, the Socialists and Greens stay intent on searching for unimaginable agreements in parliament. These events are trapped by an institutional logic whose limits have develop into evident over the previous yr: the vast majority of residents and even of deputies within the Nationwide Meeting need one factor, however the Macronite authorities has the institutional energy to do the other.
That’s the reason ever extra voices are talking of a “regime disaster”: the extremely presidential Fifth Republic based by Charles de Gaulle is exhausted. Macron has taken to the acute the political logic of latest French presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande: each imposed unpopular neoliberal reforms (cuts to pensions and public spending, labor liberalization) utilizing public debt as an excuse, accompanied by tax giveaways to the wealthy and large firms. Each, like Macron, managed to push by most of their reforms regardless of majority public opposition, outraged by the explosion of inequality in latest many years. Simply throughout Macron’s governments, the 5 hundred richest French folks have doubled their wealth, which had already grown below Hollande’s presidency. The sensation is rising that the political system is rigged in favor of the elites and impermeable to the favored will, which has translated into elevated help for the Rassemblement Nationwide, the primary beneficiary of protest votes.
Nonetheless, latest protests have managed to heart the political debate on tax justice slightly than far-right themes. On discuss reveals, immigration and insecurity are now not the primary subjects, changed by dialogue of proposals such because the “Zucman tax,” a 2 p.c levy on the wealth of the ultrarich that might have an effect on only one,800 folks throughout France and lift €5 billion yearly. This can be a very average proposal, however one with the ability to focus on the scandalous degree that inequality has reached, fueled by the insurance policies of latest presidents. The Rassemblement Nationwide — which didn’t vote in favor of the Zucman tax in parliament when given the possibility — is uncomfortable within the present context, the place its insistence on blaming migrants for the nation’s issues sounds eccentric.
The political and union organizations of the Left, along with the favored assemblies born out of Bloquons tout!, face the problem of shifting the silent majority of French society from resignation to energetic rebel. That is the a part of France that rejects Macron and his insurance policies however doesn’t belief within the usefulness of protesting — an comprehensible perception, given the irritating observe report of protest actions of latest many years. A wave of mobilizations strengthened by broader layers of the inhabitants and disruptive protest strategies (mass and extended strikes, transport-route blockades, and many others.) would considerably enhance the strain on Macron. His resignation is unlikely, as he appears decided to cling to energy till the 2027 presidential elections. The hope is that France’s revolutionary custom can carry surprises.
The mobilizations will at the very least place the Left in a extra favorable place for the 2027 electoral contest. The victory of a candidate to the left of the Parti Socialiste — be it Mélenchon or another person — would possible spell the top of the presidentialist Fifth Republic and the calling of a constituent meeting. Such a prospect would all of a sudden open up all of the political potentialities which were closed off by Macron’s one-man rule.
However to get there, many levels stay. That begins with an intensification of mobilizations — and avoiding a Rassemblement Nationwide electoral victory. Such a threat is as we speak hardly to be excluded.
