Mobilization of farmers, taxis, teachers… Towards a “week of all dangers” on the social front

A “week of all dangers”. It is in these terms that the president of the powerful FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, presented the opening week on Sunday. If the boss of the main agricultural union spoke only for his profession, angry, among other things, against insufficient remuneration and the excessive weight of environmental standards, other professions also planned to mobilize this week. Overview.

Despite Gabriel Attal's first announcements to farmers on Friday, they continue the fight this week, believing that the Prime Minister's measures do not go far enough. After being concentrated last week in the regions, the mobilization also reached Paris this week. At the call of the FNSEA and Young Farmers (JA), hundreds of tractors converged on the capital this Monday in order to put the city in a “state of siege” from the beginning of the afternoon. Concretely, eight “blocking points” in Île-de-France, on major highways a few kilometers or tens of kilometers from the ring road, are planned, for an “indefinite period”.

Outside the capital, other blockades are being organized this week by farmers. In Lyon for example, where the FRSEA (Regional Federation of Farmers' Unions) Auvergne Rhône-Alpes called for a blockade from this Monday at 2 p.m. The movement must “be long-term”, warned the union. Other blockages are planned throughout France, notably in Brittany or in Marseille.

For their part, taxis joined the farmers' protest this Monday. They could also mobilize over time, since four national organizations of the profession have called for a “renewable” day of mobilization. The drivers thus carried out snail operations this Monday in Paris, Marseille or Bordeaux, but their demands are not the same as those of the farmers. They are demanding a renegotiation of the conditions of remuneration for patient transport, while the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) has put on the table an agreement deemed unfavorable by the unions which demanded a status quo.

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On Tuesday, a strike will affect EDF: all of the energy company's employees are called to strike all day, to encourage the group's management to return to the negotiating table on the issue of wages. The unions consider the salary increases decided for 2024 to be insufficient.

This day of strike will result in “load reductions (electricity production) and the cessation of construction sites on the units (nuclear reactors) which are under maintenance”, indicated Arnaud Barlet, central union secretary CFE-CGC for EDF HER. However, this strike will have no impact on EDF customers. “The consequences are for the company's finances, since if we produce less electricity, we sell less electricity, but that does not affect our customers,” said the trade unionist.

Teachers will also be on strike this week, but for them it will be this Thursday, February 1st. A call for strike and demonstration which was launched at the beginning of January by the main teaching unions, to demand in particular salary increases, a stop to job cuts, or even “civil servant status and a real salary for AESH” (accompanying students with disabilities).

The controversial remarks of the new Minister of National Education Amélie Oudéa-Castéra on public schools have given some vigor to this call for a strike. Among the demands of the teaching unions, they are now calling for the head of the minister and her replacement by a full minister. “National education deserves better than a simple attachment to the Ministry of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP),” believes the FSU-SNUipp, the leading union in nursery and elementary schools.

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From there to imagining a convergence of struggles this week and a conflagration of the country, there is still a step. Such a scenario seems improbable for the moment. “Conjunctions of struggle with other professions are marginal”, except “in Brittany”, noted Territorial Intelligence in a note, revealed last week by Franceinfo, emphasizing that “agricultural corporatism does not promote the convergence of struggles”. “The appeals of the yellow vests to join the action remain for the moment without effect,” also noted Territorial Intelligence.

“The demands of farmers are very corporatist and specific to their profession. That other social bodies express their solidarity with these demands does not mean that they recognize themselves in them or are ready to carry them,” confirmed Éric Agrikoliansky, professor of political science at Paris-Dauphine University, to the Parisian. This specialist in social movements refers to other professions who have supported the farmers' demonstrations, without calling for people to join the movement. This is the case, for example, of the Union of Hotel-Restaurant Trades and Industries (Umih), the French Confederation of Butchery, Butchery-Charcuterie, Caterers (CFBCT), and also bakers.

Fishermen joined the mobilization of farmers last week, particularly in Brittany, without knowing whether this will continue this week. As for the Union Fédérale Route FGTE-CFDT, a truckers' union, it does not rule out also mobilizing if a Minister of Transport is not appointed quickly by Gabriel Attal. “Without concrete action on the part of the Government, the tone could harden in the days or weeks to come, like the farmers who are legitimately expressing their discontent,” writes the organization.