France: Mobilization Against the Budget Rigor Continues

di Pauline Menu

On September 18th, protests against the French government’s budget continued. This time, more than 500,000 demonstrators took to the streets. Sébastien Lecornu’s appointment is far from appeasing anger, and now trade union and social pressure is growing stronger. On Thursday, September 18, over 500,000 protesters answered the inter-union coalition's call to demonstrate, including 55,000 in Paris. The CGT (General Confederation of Labor), the largest union, estimated that one million people protested and expressed optimism about the great success of the mobilization. One out of six teachers and 12% of civil servants were on strike. At midday, EDF reported that the strike had caused a reduction of around 4,000 MW in output at its power plants, equivalent to four nuclear reactors. Like the September 10th mobilization, protesters gathered against the government’s budgetary austerity, the severe lack of public funding for education and healthcare, as well as their difficulty making ...