The first blockades of truckers were felt this Monday on the French routes on the eve of what is anticipated to be the most massive day of strikes and demonstrations since the protests against the pension reform of the Government of Emmanuel Macron began.
The roadblocks were made in logistics centers and accesses to some large cities since Sunday night, causing traffic jams on access roads from Lille (north) or Rouen (northwest) on Monday morning.
In the afternoon, workers from refineries, energy and other sectors joined the blockades.
Within minutes the roundabout is at a standstill and workers are discussing the battle for pensions with motorists and truck drivers, and are being greeted with expressions of support. pic.twitter.com/3pnyjqZgth
— Permanent Revolution (@RevPermanente) March 6, 2023
Starting at 7:00 p.m. this Monday, the strikes will take effect on the trains. The state railway company SNCF has already announced that it will cancel tomorrow 80% of high-speed trains (TGV) on average and practically all other conventional long-distance trains.
On international lines, there will be no service on the Paris-Barcelona corridor or on the lines between France and Germany; only one return train on the links with Italy, and 20% of the usual ones on the connections with Switzerland.
Two thirds of the Eurostars will operate with London and also two thirds of the Thalys that go from Paris to Brussels, some of which then continue in the direction of the Netherlands or Germany.
In the outskirts of Paris, depending on the lines, between a third and a fifth of the usual services will be maintained, and in parallel in the capital’s metro, only the normal service will be maintained on the two automatic lines, 1 and 2. 14.
For its part, the controllers’ strike will lead to the suppression of a significant number of flights at Charles de Gaulle as well as those at Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse.
In reality, the first mobilizations to warm the environment began on Friday in the energy sector, with the reduction of electrical tension in some power plants over the weekend.
Tomorrow’s protests and the strike called by the main union centers are expected to be the largest since the movement against Macron’s pension reform began, which aims to bring the minimum retirement age from the current 62 to 64.
All the surveys in recent months show a very majority rejection of the reform (68%, according to an Ifop poll published on Sunday) and support for the unions in their plans to continue the strikes beyond Tuesday (56% , according to another Elabe survey made public today).
However, despite this massive support, the union leaders reiterated on Thursday that their call is to paralyze the country only on March 7, while from below there are already several sectors of workers who are pressing for the strike to become indefinite. , as the only way to defeat the government reform.
The inter-union, which brings together the main unions such as the CFDT and the CGT, insist on not calling a general strike for an indefinite period of time. “The inter-union is not in the renewable strike [indefinida]”, said Marylise Léon, deputy secretary of the CFDT, at a press conference.
On the CGT side, its leader Philippe Martínez, although he spoke vaguely at the beginning of the week of a “renewable strike”, was in charge of clarifying that he was not speaking of an indefinite general strike but that the “renewal” could be voted on. with actions of two or three hours a day in different unions.
The speech of the Intersindical makes clear the intention of the union leaders to continue the strategy of pressure on the Senate with isolated actions and without continuity that has already been defeated since January 19.
On the contrary, several sectors, including five federations of the CGT, from railway workers to the FNIC (refineries), passing through the dockers, energy companies and glass and ceramic artists, the RATP inter-union (Paris metropolitan transport) and all the unions of the SNCF (railroad workers), including the CFDT railway section, call a renewable strike from March 7.
Last Thursday the second meeting of the Network for the general strike was held in Paris. A meeting that showed the aspirations of different sectors of workers to paralyze the country and for the strike to spread and become renewable. This Network was formed and began to meet after a column published in the Sunday newspaper on January 28, and which was signed by 300 trade unionists, activists and personalities who called for the preparation of renewable strikes where possible.
A renewable strike of this type would be an important point of support for the rest of the movement and would show the way for the entire labor movement. In fact, the strategic sectors have a fundamental role in extending the renewable strike to the rest of the workers: subcontractors, temporary workers, logistics workers, industry, SMEs.
As our colleagues from Revolution Permanente point out, in order to extend the strike to the rest of the sectors it is necessary to “raise a program that goes beyond the withdrawal of the pension reform. While a jump in food prices is coming In the coming weeks, wage strikes have multiplied in various sectors, including movements such as that of the waste collectors in Sète, who have decided to go on indefinite strike starting March 7 for a 60-year-old retirement plenary session and salary increases, or as in Transdev Roissy, where the workers voted for a 48-hour strike on March 7 for pensions and an increase of €300”.
These mobilizations bear witness to an aspiration at the base to link the battle for pensions and the fight for wages and build a movement that overcomes the narrow current framework of demands and make March 7 the start of a political general strike against the reform of Macron and all his politics.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
