The French live this Tuesday a day of general strike to demand salary increases to compensate for inflation and criticize the government’s response to the closure of the refineries.
The strike is especially visible on public transport and in the demonstrations taking place across the country. During the morning at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, people waited longer than usual to travel. “Normally it takes me an hour and a half. Today I have two or three more to go,” Yera Diallo told AFP.
In Toulouse, in the south of the country, Frédéric Mercier Hadisyde, a 58-year-old engineer, arrived two hours earlier than usual to catch a train to Paris: “I was afraid of the riots, so I organized myself. I understand them.”
Violence also appeared in the Paris protests, with several injuries identified and images of smashed shop windows.
Des tensions à Vavin (14e), a CIC agency attacked. Le cortège continues so well that badly d’progress, the situation is still confusing. pic.twitter.com/QZ8vjxfxEu
– Thibaud Le Meneec (@LeMeneec) October 18, 2022
According to a survey by the French company Elabe, 49% of French people disapprove of the strike, which in the transport sector may be prolonged. Students, civil servants, merchants, workers in the energy and transportation sectors, among others, were called to strike by the CGT union.
“We ask for a minimum wage of 2,000 euros, which is equivalent to an increase of 300 euros,” CGT secretary general Philippe Martinez told RTL radio, also advocating readjustment for inflation.
France, the second largest economy in the European Union, recorded the lowest harmonized inflation rate in the euro zone in September, 6.2%, below other economies such as Germany (10.9%), Italy (9.5 %) and Spain (9.3%). according to Eurostat. But the social climate is tense.
In addition to the salary increase, the strikers are calling for a better distribution of the profits of the energy giant TotalEnergies: more than $10 billion in the first half of 2022. By refusing to tax these extraordinary profits at the national level, Macron has put the government “in the field of the big bosses, in total disconnection with a large part of the French who suffer from inflation every day”, according to an editorial in the newspaper Libération.
Source: TSF
