this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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It's been some time since citizen action actually led to pregress in France.
We had worker's rights improvements thanks to strikes, occupations and violence against the factorie's bosses at the start of 20th century, which in turned fueled a socialist movement that got a real left elected in 1936 - to which we owe,among other stuff, mandatory pto for everyone.
We had a great social security system built after ww2, because the resistance against nazis was mostly made of communists and all the major firms had collaborated so they did not have much of a say (some were nationalized when the war ended).
The latest thing I can think of is from the 90s, when the legal weekly work time was reduced to 35hrs (you can still work overtime but your employer has to pay you more).
But the nineties is also the point where the left started losing power, and lots of good thing started being undone (salaries stopped rising with inflation, taxbreaks for the rich and the big companies started multiplying...).
In the last two decades, most of our protests and strikes were not to gain new rights and make our lives better, but to try and stop rights being taken away (alas with little to no success): retirement, workers negotiation power, social security, unemployment...
All of it is under attack from the right (which is in power since then) in what looks like a continued effort to move towards the american ultraliberal way of doing things. Health, education, transportation and retirement for exemple are becoming increasingly privatised - it's easy to do, cut the funding of the public services, watch them drown, accuse them of not being efficient enough, introduce new legislation to make space for the private sector.
I really wish we'd revolt again, and the "gilets jaunes" from 2018-2020 seemed like a step in the right direction (not perfect of course, and the far-right succeded a little in being included in the movement) but was stopped first with extreme police brutality then by the lockdown and it never got rolling again.
Recently, American worker's unions look a lot more french than the french ones do, and I hope we'll be able to get some inspiration from you !
The problem is that the french workers going on strike has basically become a meme. Look at Canteloup's Monsieur Regis character. SNCF go on strike for fun and no one really knows why.
The last major strikes were because of the retirement age raising to 62. The rest of the world looked on and thought "I'd love to retire at the age you are all complaining about". Hell, I don't even WANT to retire at 62! What will I do with myself?
I agree with the part about french workers on strike becoming a meme, but I wanna stress that it didn't happen by itself.
It's the result of voluntary and sound political strategies from our (economically) liberal governments.
Step 1: "let's make a very offensive law proposition"
Step 2: workers go on strike.
Step 3: "okay let's take back the worst point and still applythe rest"
Step 4: workers' lives are worst despite the strike and the unions lose power and credibility
Sprinkle in the fact that most media were bought by billionaires who aren't too fond of workers' rights, a few corrupt union leaders and you get the current situation.
It's interesting that you mention SNCF (state-owned - for now - french railway) because the always make the reason of their strikes clear and (spoiler) it's never for fun. But when strikes occur, most of the media interview people who wanted to go to work/on holiday by train and can't because of the strike, "economists" who rant about the hundreds of k€ losses for businesses because of the strike, some ass***e from the government who stated "we think the right of strike and protest is very important, but not when it bothers other people" and never the union's heads or the sociologists who can explain how the previous laws have made life worse for the rail workers and how the current one is gonna be worst.