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LATEST: French unions announce further strikes after one million join protest

After a successful "first day of mobilisation" in which 1 million people took to the streets, schools closed and trains and city public transport was paralysed, unions have announced a second day of mass strikes in their ongoing battle against pension reform.

Published: 19 January 2023 20:09 CET

LATEST: French unions announce further strikes after one million join protest

Demonstrators gather in Place de la Republique during a rally in Paris on January 19, 2023, as workers go on strike over the French President's plan to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP

Unions announced on Thursday evening that a second day of mass strike action – backed by all eight of France’s union federations – will take place on Tuesday, January 31st.

“The message is very clear: the government must give up both the retirement age of 64 and the extension of the working life,” said a spokesman for the joint union action.

Full details of which services will be affected by the strikes are yet to be announced, but unions will be hoping for a repeat of Thursday’s action – which saw extremely limited service on trains and on public transport in most of France’s major cities.

Schools across the country were closed as teachers talked out, and other public services were disrupted by the action.

Demos in towns and cities across France saw a turnout of 1.1 million people, according to estimates from the Interior Ministry although unions claimed a higher figure.

‘Pension reform is an insult to the French people’ – more than 1 million people demonstrate

In addition to the January 31st strike, some unions are also talking about “extra actions and initiatives, including strikes around January 23rd” – which is the day the pension reform is presented to the Council of Ministers, the first step on the legislative journey.

Unions have promised the ‘mother of all battles’ against the pension reform – including raising the pension age from 62 to 64 – which is due to come before parliament in March.

Some individual unions have already announced extra actions, such as the oil refinery workers who will be holding strikes and blockades at the end of January and beginning of February.

Calendar – French pension strike dates

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French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and 'poo' Le Pen

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

It’s now been 17 days since Macron’s surprise call for snap parliamentary elections, and four days until the first round of voting.

TV debates

The hotly-anticipated first TV debate of the election on Tuesday night turned out to be an ill-tempered affair with a lot of interruptions and men talking over each other.

The line of the night went to the left representative Manuel Bompard – who otherwise struggled to make much of an impact – when he told far-right leader Jordan Bardella (whose Italian ancestors migrated to France several generations back): “When your personal ancestors arrived in France, your political ancestors said exactly the same thing to them. I find that tragic.”

But perhaps the biggest question of all is whether any of this matters? The presidential election debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen back in 2017 is widely credited with influencing the campaign as Macron exposed her contradictory policies and economic illiteracy.

However a debate ahead of the European elections last month between Bardella and prime minister Gabriel Attal was widely agreed to have been ‘won’ by Attal, who also managed to expose flaws and contradictions in the far right party’s policies. Nevertheless, the far-right went on to convincingly beat the Macronists at the polls.

Has the political scene simply moved on so that Bardella’s brief and fact-light TikTok videos convince more people than a two-hour prime-time TV debate?

You can hear the team from The Local discussing all the election latest on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

Road to chaos

Just over two weeks ago when Macron called this election, he intended to call the bluff of the French electorate – did they really want a government made up of Marine Len Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party?

Well, latest polling suggests that a large portion of French people want exactly that, and significantly fewer people want to continue with a Macron government.

With the caveat that pollsters themselves say this is is a difficult election to call, current polling suggests RN would take 35 percent of the vote, the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire 30 percent and Macron’s centrists 20 percent.

This is potentially bad news for everyone, as those figures would give no party an overall majority in parliament and would instead likely usher in an era of political chaos.

The questions discussed in French conversation and media have now moved on from ‘who will win the election?’ to distinctly more technical concerns like – what exactly does the Constitution say about the powers of a president without a government? Can France have a ‘caretaker government’ in the long term? Is it time for a 6th republic?.

The most over-used phrase in French political discourse this week? Sans précédent (unprecedented).

Démission

From sans précédent to sans président – if this election leads to total chaos, will Macron resign? It’s certainly being discussed, but he says he will not.

For citizens of many European parliamentary democracies it seems virtually automatic that the president would resign if he cannot form a government, but the French system is very different and several French presidents have continued in post despite being obliged to appoint an opponent as prime minister.

READ ALSO Will Macron resign in case of an election disaster?

The only president of the Fifth Republic to resign early was Charles de Gaulle – the trigger was the failure of a referendum on local government, but it may be that he was simply fed up; he was 78 years old and had already been through an attempted coup and the May 1968 general strike which paralysed the country. He died a year after leaving office.

Caca craft

She might be riding high in the polls, but not everyone is enamoured of Le Pen, it seems, especially not in ‘lefty’ eastern Paris – as seen by this rather neatly crafted Marine Le Pen flag stuck into a lump of dog poo left on the pavement.

Thanks to spotter Helen Massy-Beresford, who saw this in Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

You can find all the latest election news HERE, or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

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