Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets

The CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires as well as four high school and student organizations called on Tuesday for an interprofessional strike which gave rise to dozens of rallies from one end of France to the other. After several weeks of conflict in refineries and nuclear power plants, it was a bit of a handover: all employees in the country were called upon to strike and demonstrate for an increase in wages and a better distribution of wealth.

In Paris, 70,000 people demonstrated, according to the CGT, 30,000 more than on the previous day of September 29. Several thousand people also marched in Marseille, Strasbourg or Rennes. In Le Havre, the demonstration attracted at least 12,000 people according to the CGT (3,650 according to the police), among which the mobilized employees of the TotalEnergies refinery of Gonfreville-l’Orcher and those of the ExxonMobil refinery of Notre-Dame-de -Gravenchon, where the strike ended on Friday. In Gravelines, in the North, the rally took place in front of the nuclear power plant, on strike renewable since Thursday, and more than 400 people took part. The CGT counted 7,000 demonstrators in Bordeaux, 4,000 in Nantes and as many in the cities of Toulouse, Bastia and Ajaccio.

58% of strikers in vocational high schools

If teachers have not mobilized massively across the country, they have been on the other hand in vocational high schools, where the CGT accounts for 58% of strikers (against 22.94% according to national education figures), due in particular to a reform envisaged by Emmanuel Macron. As for the strike at the RATP, it should not be renewed this Wednesday, agreed the CGT-RATP. At the SNCF, on the other hand, the “trend” is following the movement, indicates the secretary general of the CGT railwaymen, Laurent Brun. Asked about the possibility that the movement will continue beyond the crucial stage of school holidays, the general secretary of the CGT Philippe Martinez left the last word to the workers: “It is the striking employees who will decide. » The union official also called for “an Orsec plan” on wages.