Macron faces ‘Thatcher moment’ with the unions

President determined not to back down as thousands of French workers launch multiple strikes this week

RAIL managers are being offered bonuses for driving trains during three months of rolling strikes starting today, as Emmanuel Macron faces a make-orbreak confrontation with unions in his push to modernise France. Air France staff, dustmen, civil servants, electricity, gas and other public utilities workers also plan strikes this week amid fears of nationwide protests in the runup to the 50th anniversary of the May 1968 uprising.

Workers at France Télévisions, the state broadcaster, will also strike.

Hundreds of supermarkets were forced to close over the Easter weekend as workers walked out in protest against low wages and job cuts at Carrefour, France’s largest private-sector employer, and at least 10 universities have cancelled classes because of student demonstrations against tougher new entrance requirements.

Two faculty members face charges over accusations they encouraged masked thugs armed with baseball bats to attack students staging a sit-in at Montpellier University, in southern France.

The discontent echoes the militancy of 1968, when student protests and nationwide strikes paralysed France’s conservative, post-war establishment and left liberal thinking to dominate social policy and education.

Since then, French presidents’ attempts to take on the unions have generally ended in humiliating U-turns, notably in 1995 when a wave of general strikes forced Jacques Chirac to abandon plans for economic reforms.

But Mr Macron is calculating that France is ready to break the taboos that have weakened its economy. Spurred on by his successful labour reforms last year, he is determined to give no ground. His showdown with the rail unions is seen as his “Thatcher moment”. A poll published yesterday suggests that nearly three quarters of the public are convinced that he will win the battle, as Margaret Thatcher did against the miners in the Eighties.

The centrist president will still have to proceed with caution. Only 51 per cent of the French back his drive to reform the economy and 46 per cent support the rail strikes, the poll indicates.

Strikes are planned for two days out of every five until the end of June as rail workers aim to disrupt services without losing all their wages. French law requires a minimum service during strikes, but Guillaume Pépy, the head of the state-run rail company SNCF, warned that some lines may be closed.

Philippe Martinez, the dour leader of the Leftist CGT union, appears as resolute as Mr Macron. Yet his rhetoric of class warfare and his militant positions jar with many French workers, only 11 per cent of whom are unionised.

The conflict over the next few months will be as decisive for the unions’ future as for the centrist president’s reforms.