French public sector workers protest against Macron budget cuts
FRANCE - Demonstrators take to the streets as unions call industrial action to oppose president’s plans to overhaul state sector. Demonstrators carry a banner reading ‘Public sector on strike’ during a protest in Paris. Thousands of French public sector workers have gone on strike and staged street demonstrations across France to protest against Emmanuel Macron’s budget cuts and pro-business agenda. All nine unions representing public sector workers from hospital staff and teachers to air traffic controllers called joint industrial action for the first time in a decade.
Union leaders said they wanted to show a ‘profound disagreement’ with the president’s plans to overhaul the state sector, accusing him of ‘stigmatising’ state workers and favouring private business.
France’s vast public sector employs about 5.4 million staff and accounts for one in five jobs in the country. Macron, like previous presidents, has sought to make cuts in the large state sector budget with a plan to reduce the number of state workers by 120,000 over the next five years. A consultation on the future of the public sector is to begin soon. Demonstrators from nurses to school canteen staff protested against issues including job cuts, low pay, tax increases and the tightening of rules that mean the first day of sick leave goes unpaid.
The education ministry said one in five primary school teachers and 16% of secondary school teachers had gone on strike, while unions said the figure was higher. Some high schools were blockaded by pupils. For the first time since 2009, hospital unions called on medical staff to walk out. About 30% of flights in and out of Paris and other major cities were cancelled because of action by air traffic controllers.
It was the latest in a series of street demonstrations against Macron’s pro-business agenda – after unions and hauliers demonstrated against changes to loosen labour laws and pensioners protested over taxes. The demonstrations have so far been fragmented, with a lower turnout than other major strikes in recent years. The prime minister, Edouard Philippe, insisted that bonuses and tax measures would be introduced for public sector workers and that only 1,600 public sector jobs would disappear next year. At the Paris demonstration, protesters held signs accusing Macron of ‘stealing from the poor to give to the rich’.
Elisabeth Riou, 59, a nursery school teacher from SeineSaint-Denis, north of Paris, said Macron’s decision to end a scheme of state-assisted jobs would affect support staff for children, including those with Down’s syndrome whom she had taught. “Unfortunately, the government cares less about children than it does about spreadsheets and budget cuts,” she said. “We’re always hearing that the French education system is one of the worst performing and yet the children are forgotten in all this. A good state system needs constant investment.”
Sylvie, 55, had worked since she was 18 caring for medical staff’s children in a hospital crèche in Neuilly-sur-Marne, which is soon to close. “There’s a sense that the government sees us public sector workers as lazy,” she said. “I want Macron to listen. He’s young, he should listen, but he seems inflexible.”
Frederic Dabi of the Ifop polling agency told AFP that public sector workers felt they were being made to pay for the government’s policies. Macron’s approval ratings have recovered slightly after a dramatic slide this summer to about 30% after he was elected in May against the far-right Marine Le Pen. He is determined to style himself as a reformer who won’t bow to street protests. “What is positive for Emmanuel Macron is that he is seen as facing down the street and implementing his programme,” Dabi said. (theguardian.com/Foto: theguardian.com)