Crumbs and loans

Toulouse, November 10th: Thousands demonstrate for a better education system and against the high cost of living.

Toulouse, November 10th: Thousands demonstrate for a better education system and against the high cost of living.

For many of those involved, the results were disappointing: the first round of the so-called social conference ended early Monday afternoon in Paris. The French government, trade union confederations and employers' organizations took part. The government of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu had invited people to the event in response to the social and youth protests that had spread the previous week.

Their largest demonstrations to date took place on Thursday last week. According to the Interior Ministry, 575,000 people were traveling across the country, and 1.6 million according to trade unions. In Paris alone, the trade union federation CGT spoke of 350,000 participants, the government of 65,000.

This time, unions called on employees to go on strike and demonstrate, no longer just out of solidarity with the youth protests. Representatives of the CGT were already talking about a general strike, but that was far away. The most recent general strike in France, which effectively brought large parts of the economy and social life to a standstill, ended in June 1968. On Thursday it was mainly younger people and the CGT and the smaller left-wing Union Syndicale Solidaires who were on the streets. The strike was partly noticeable in rail traffic and through the cancellation of schools, for example in Paris and the surrounding area.

As a result of the first round of dialogue, the government increased the statutory minimum wage SMIC. According to legal requirements, the minimum wage would have had to increase by 18 euros per month on January 1st anyway to compensate for inflation. The cabinet generously announced that it would bring forward this adjustment to December 1st and increase it by around 24 euros per month, from 1,477.83 euros net to 1,501.90 euros in the future. In response to the accusation that this was merely symbolic politics, Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou said that the increase was "not just symbolic." However, many unions criticized the increase. The social-liberal trade union umbrella organization CFDT classified the adjustment as “inadequate” and called for an immediate increase of at least 100 euros per month; the CGT spoke of “crumbs” and, like the left-wing populist party LFI, demanded an increase of 200 euros. Both justified this with the increased cost of living and inflation.

A second round of negotiations, to which the government invited high school and student unions on Monday evening to discuss education reforms, ended abruptly. Because members of Éric Ciotti's right-wing extremist parties Rassemblement national and Union des droites pour la République had also been invited to the meeting, most of the student and high school student representatives left the meeting. They were also dissatisfied with the content: a one-off government restructuring program worth four billion euros for high schools and one billion euros for universities did not go far enough for the representatives. These funds are intended as repayable loans to the regions responsible for high schools, which were forced to make further savings in the 2026 state budget and assume costs that were previously borne by the central state.

In order to increase the pressure on the government, demonstrations took place again on Tuesday afternoon. These were mainly worn by students, but people who referred to the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) also called for them - a highly heterogeneous protest movement that emerged in 2018 and was originally directed against fuel taxes. Some of the unions led by the CGT are calling for a public sector strike next Tuesday. Protest marches are scheduled to take place across Europe the following weekend, including in Germany on November 20th.

The police's handling of the protests is also criticized. The media Actu.fr published videos from Bordeaux showing Centaure-type gendarmerie armored cars making a deafening noise directed at demonstrators. It could be the use of so-called sound cannons, the use of which the European Court of Human Rights has classified as illegal and should not be used in a lawsuit against Serbia's authoritarian government in 2025.

The use of so-called Micas (individual measures of administrative control and surveillance) against those involved in demonstrations is also controversial. These are issued with administrative acts prohibiting them from staying during demonstrations, being expelled or subject to strict police reporting requirements. From 2015 to 2017, these measures were part of the state of emergency imposed due to jihadist attacks and were incorporated into ordinary law when it expired in autumn 2017. Now, amid loud protests from human rights groups, they are also being used in connection with social protests.