France's unions are not letting the pressure drop. On Sunday, labour leaders and protest groups called supporters back onto the streets on October 31 and held firm on a nationwide strike for November 5 — the day after Saturday's marches drew 410,000 people by the Interior Ministry's count, nearly 800,000 by the CGT's, and ended with 1,314 arrests across the country.
The demands run from the classroom to the pay packet: negotiations to raise wages and close the gender pay gap, higher pensions, a rise in the minimum wage and social benefits, more money for public services, and tax measures aimed at wealth, inheritances and dividends. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu met union leaders at Matignon for some two and a half hours and sent them away empty-handed; CGT general secretary Sophie Binet said there had been "no consideration of our demands." Her conclusion: "The time has come to move the mobilisation up a gear; from that date strike action must take over."
The two dates do different work. October 31 is street pressure — Solidaires co-leader Murielle Guilbert, citing an "aggregation of anger" among students, workers and firefighters, said: "We call on people to take to the streets next Saturday." The Yellow Vests are calling sit-ins outside town halls and the National Assembly; the SUD Education teaching union says it will join, while the CGT decides during the week. November 5 is the escalation: an interprofessional strike across public and private sectors, with four rail unions at the SNCF called out, teachers striking — including, for the first time, private schools under state contract — and health and energy workers expected to join.
The wave began in the schools — overcrowded classes, teacher shortages, crumbling buildings and the Parcoursup admissions system — and merged with wider anger over wages lagging the cost of living. On October 17 it turned violent, with looting in several cities and a town hall set on fire in Limoges. On Saturday the state answered with 70,000 police; the authorised Paris march was confined to the city's south-eastern edge, and near its end masked demonstrators threw objects and fireworks at officers, who replied with tear gas, sound grenades and water cannon. Fires burned in Marseille and Lyon, two people were seriously injured — one in Toulouse, one in Clermont-Ferrand — and about 50 police officers were hurt, far fewer than the week before.
The government's room to answer is narrow. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez defended the security operation and blamed the violence on extremist fringes around the marches; police unions warned on Sunday they do not have the staff to sustain deployments of Saturday's scale for long. President Macron, whose mandate expires next April and whose party no longer holds a majority, faces strained public finances and, so far, has offered talks and limited promises to students rather than a package. Guilbert's verdict on the talks was blunt: "We have received no response at all from this government." The road now runs to October 31 — and then to November 5.
Never miss a story.Join our Telegram channel and get every article link the second it is published.
Join Telegram Channel