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 ...