A Workers’ International Network meeting – October 2022
(1) FRENCH WORKERS FIGHT BACK – A Workers’ International Meeting – October 2022 – YouTube
Just months after the narrow victory at presidential and parliamentary elections of Macron and his newly renamed Renaissance party, the French working class is back on the march. It has staged a rolling wave of strikes and demonstrations in protest at the rising cost of living, including a one-day general strikes on 18th October and nationwide demonstrations on 16th October, and striking transport workers aiming to operate “zero metro and zero railway” services from 9th to 11th November.
Workers in the energy companies, nuclear power, railways, buses and trams, car manufacturing, agriculture, food production, social services, lorry drivers, teachers, hospital workers and others have joined together to demand the indexation of salaries and pensions against inflation and to protest against government intervention in the refinery strikes. Weeks of industrial action have shut down oil refineries and caused petrol shortages around the country. They are demanding an increase in the minimum wage, indexation of all salaries in line with inflation, and a pay rise for public sector workers, plus higher wages from the windfall profits of energy companies. A recent opinion poll found that one in three French people would be prepared to strike or protest in the coming weeks to demand pay increases as inflation soars.
Hear a first-hand on-the-spot report from Olivier Delbeke, a member of the CGT trade union federation and of the editorial committee of the journal Aplutsoc – Arguments Pour la Lutte Sociale (arguments for the social struggle)