Union hardliners make their push against President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark labor-market reform Tuesday with strikes and demonstrations across France.
The CGT, the main union holdout against Macron’s plan to add flexibility to the labor code, says 180 demonstrations are planned nationwide and 4,000 strike notices have been filed. Commuter trains will be disrupted though high-speed services including the Eurostar to London and Thalys to Brussels will operate normally, train operator SNCF said. Oil refineries may also shut for part of the day, the CGT said.
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Macron, who is down in the polls and battling critics on several fronts, will be hoping for limited disruption to transport and a modest turnout at the demonstrations as he prepares to to push through the reform on which he has staked both his political capital and his economic strategy for the next five years. Labor activists, meanwhile, need a show of unity and popular support to stand a chance of watering down the changes and slowing his momentum on a host of other issues such as pensions and public spending.
“The turnout for the protesters will certainly count,” said Vincent Thibault, head of opinion at pollster Elabe in Paris. The benchmark for the protests will be the demonstrations against Francois Hollande’s labor reform and “for Macron a drop in participation will be very welcome,” Thibault said.
Hurricanes and Extremists
As labor activists gear up for their demonstrations, the 39-year-old president is traveling to France’s Caribbean territories to face residents angry with his government’s handling of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma.
Macron is also rebuffing complaints that he has shown contempt for the population in recent speeches. After remarking in Bucharest last month that the French “detest reform,” Macron said in Athens Friday that he wouldn’t “give in to the lazy, the cynics or extremists,” in his effort to modernize France.
Macron is sticking by his comments, saying they are being taken out of context and were referring to previous governments not the French population.
That isn’t stopping Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the leftist France Unbowed party that is increasingly seen as the main opposition.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” Melenchon said on BFM TV Sunday. “The head of state is attacking regular French people. Who are these lazy people? Who are the extremists?”
Problematic Polls
Multiple polls have shown Macron’s approval rating slumping as he completes his fourth month in office. A survey published by Elabe last week showed that only 37 percent of voters have confidence in his leadership, down from 45 percent in July and five points below the level registered by his one-time mentor Hollande at this stage of his presidential mandate. Hollande went on to post record-low approval ratings for a French leader.
Melenchon, meanwhile, is glorying in his new found role as de facto leader of the opposition. About 32 percent of voters see France Unbowed as the main opponent of the government, compared with 14 percent for Marine Le Pen’s National Front and 9 percent for the Republicans, the party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Having originally opted out of the Tuesday marches to focus on his own Sept. 23 demonstration, Melenchon changed his mind and decided to participate in the CGT’s effort. He will march alongside labor activists in Marseille and most of his party leadership will also participate as will Socialist presidential candidate Benoit Hamon.
Further protests are planned for Sept. 21, the day before the overhaul of labor-market rules is due to come into effect by executive order. For Macron, the reform is only the first of several he intends to use to bolster France’s weight in the economic governance of the euro area and lift its lackluster performance.
“The government needs to show it can stick to its plan,” Elabe’s Thibault said. “But Macron cannot just steamroll the majority of the population with his reforms at a time when his popularity is in free fall.
Dramelin
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