Four months after the last strike against the pension reform, which came into effect in September, the organizations mobilized “against austerity, for salaries and gender equality.” Actions which aimed above all to engage in a showdown with the government a few days before the social conference on low wages, promised by Emmanuel Macron, and headed by Élisabeth Borne.
The demonstration started shortly after 2 p.m. from Place d’Italie, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. At the head of the procession were the general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet but also her CFDT counterpart Marylise Léon. On the banner they carried, we could read: “For the increase in wages, for gender equality, against austerity, mobilized in France and in Europe”.
In transport, train traffic was slightly disrupted on Friday on certain regional lines, for which the SNCF invited travelers to inquire region by region, but traffic was normal for the TGV. In Île-de-France, disruptions affected certain RER lines, notably D and C with two out of three trains, as with lines H, L, U and R of the Transilien. In Paris, the RATP network (metro, buses and trams) ran normally.
At 9:30 a.m. this Friday, the Louvre Museum in Paris explained on its social networks that it was “not able to open its doors at the moment”, “due to a social movement by some of its staff”. Finally, just over an hour and a half later, the Parisian institution returned to its first message and said it was ready to welcome its first visitors from 11 a.m.
The Eiffel Tower was closed to the public this Friday, in full mobilization in France “against austerity” and “for wages”. “As the staff present on site are not sufficient to open the monument in optimal conditions of security and reception for the public, the Tower will remain closed all day,” indicated the Eiffel Tower operating company. (SETE) in a press release.
Many practices remained closed on Friday according to the unions of liberal doctors, who called for a national renewable strike before new price negotiations and the examination of a controversial law in the Senate. General practitioners and liberal specialists were called upon to draw the curtain, cancel consultations and cancel all planned operations, excluding vital emergencies, to “refer” patients to the public hospital and demonstrate “the importance of liberal medicine”.
In Toulouse, Rennes, Nantes, Tours, Lyon, Douai, Perpignan, Le Mans, but also Strasbourg and Marseille, the first processions set off early Friday morning and also showed declining mobilization. For comparison, during the last day of mobilization on pensions on June 6, the unions had brought forward 50,000 participants.
200,000 people demonstrated in France on Friday as part of the day of inter-union action on wages, the CGT told AFP, while the authorities’ figure is 92,500 demonstrators throughout France, according to the police.
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