With 157,000 protesters identified throughout France, the mobilization of the May 1 Union collapse. Two years ago, they had almost 800,000 to overcome the pavement. The contrast is surprising. But should we really surprise ourselves?
It is true that it is a little better than last year (157,000 against 121,000), but that remains five times less than in 2023, when the pension reform had electrified the processions. This year, the atmosphere was bleak, tired banners, tired slogans. On May 1, the Union now seems to be in an obsolete coma.
On the street, we especially find the irreducible of the CGT … and the black blocks. After Raphaël Glucksmann last year, it was the socialist deputy Jérôme Groedj who was attacked by violent ultraguches groups. Forced to evacuate its procession in Dunkerque, despite the impotence of a fragmented left.
A labor festival without workers
The Union of the Union published in 2023 was destroyed. CGT, FO, CFDT now advances each on its side, in dispersed order. So that ? Because the balance of power has moved. In a tension economy, it is no longer the street that increases wages, it is the labor market. When companies fight to recruit, they know how to reward their talents. There is no need for megaphones.
Lesson number one: capitalism knows how to flatter those you need.
But we are not wrong: the unions, if they are weak in the street, maintain a surprising force intact in certain sectors. In the SNCF in particular, where the threat of a strike during the bridges of the camera, such as the past spring. The blocking capacity is still very real.
However, on May 1, a new idea did not arise. In Dunkerque, Marine Tondelier, Olivier Faure and François Ruffin sang “El Internacional” along with ArcelorMittal employees, threatened with 600 layoffs. But at the attempt to redo the calls to nationalization, the left is inaudible. The phrase is no longer a recipe. It’s time to change software.
What happens if we turn the page?
This labor festival looked more like a social struggle museum than a modern celebration of workers. Without vision, few people, many breaks. On May 1 without workers, without ideas … but with slogans of another century.
So, let’s ask the question frankly: What happens if we buried on May 1? At least in its ritualized version, folk, sometimes counterproductive? And if we become a true work festival in the literal sense of leaving those who want to work that day, like bakers, do they do it without worrying?
Soon a bill will be examined to protect these professionals.
The debate must move: towards the hardness, the elongation of the careers, the place of the elderly, the sense of work. Concrete and urgent subjects, which really interest employees. And this is where unions must find their role: at the negotiating table, not in empty streets.
Source: BFM TV
