The government says there is no money. We need to save on personnel in hospitals and schools. We must accept job insecurity and the end of railway workers special status. At the same time, they go to war in Syria, spending €1.15 billion in new missiles, and pretend to save the world. What does he take us for?
Not moved by our anger?
That’s what Macron tries to demonstrate. Railway workers are striking, students continue their movement, and he continues to announce future anti-workers attacks. Why not a second “solidarity day” (that is, a day of free labour)? This has nothing to do with helping old people be more autonomous, since he plans to rob them of their pensions. His dream, the dream of all the big businessmen he serves so well, would be to have 365 “solidarity days”. Enough is enough.
We must stop them
That’s what mobilised workers and students intend to do. Last Thursday, April 19th, another 300,000 people demonstrated in France in response to the call from the CGT and Solidaires unions. The demonstrations included: railway workers, on their 8th day of strike, still highly mobilised; students, whose movement still continues even though some are on vacation or passing exams; and also workers from other sectors, including energy, who were called to demonstrate.
Spread the fight
It is vital to extend the movement to other industries. The demonstrations of April 19th had large groups of railway workers, who must have been even more motivated thanks to the students’ mobilisation and the inter-professional call to demonstrate.
The general secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, now supports a convergence of all the fights, as the only way to win anything against the government’s intransigence. We can only be happy that he defends this position, as long as it goes further than words.
And it is the responsibility of workers from all industries, our responsibility, to make sure he does. Wages, jobs… everywhere our working conditions and standard of living are deteriorating. We all have demands. Let’s make them clear and join the ones who are already fighting, without waiting to be called by the unions.
While the CGT isn’t actively pushing for extending the fights, the CFDT is clearly against such an extension and therefore against victory. Its general secretary, Laurent Berger declared to Public Sénat on April 19th that “we ask […] that auxiliary nurses get a wage increase from level C to level B, and we won’t get it by joining all the fights together, that is a certainty.” How else can he do it?
Strike against the government’s violence
By mounting attack after attack, Macron aims to demonstrate he won’t back down. With his repressive policy, too. 2,500 police officers sent against the militant growers in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, forced evacuation from Tolbiac university… he displays his inflexibility.
In this context, more than ever we must unite to win.
We do not want a society where people are killed by missiles for profits, where retirees are nickel-and-dimed, where we are forced to accept any working conditions. We must be as many as possible on May Day, the international day of workers, and as many as possible to start fighting and add our anger to the anger of the workers already on strike.
