The CGT, FSU, Solidaires and several youth organizations call Thursday for a day of interprofessional mobilization to defend employment, the culmination of which will be a demonstration in Paris, without harboring any illusions about the scale of the movement, reckons given the health context.
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A demonstration will link Place de la République to Place de la Nation in Paris, from 2 p.m.
The previous day of this type, September 17, had gathered some 42,500 participants according to the Ministry of the Interior.
In Paris, 10,000 people according to the organizers and 4,800 according to the police had paraded peacefully on the same route.
The watchword of Thursday, the defense of employment and public services, while
"not a day goes by without a new announcement of a plan for job cuts, business closures or restructuring and service reductions
,
”
according to the organizers in a statement.
In fact, the number of layoffs has exploded with the health crisis linked to Covid-19: the statistics department (Dares) counted in January 84,130 termination of employment contracts considered as part of employment protection plans (PSE) , compared to 30,562 over the same period in 2019.
"Recreate a dynamic of struggle and mobilization"
Between 70 and 80 places of gatherings are planned, less than the hundred usually listed, according to Céline Verzeletti, confederal leader of the CGT.
"It will not be a day that can be massive," she
concedes.
Some departmental federations have given up on organizing parades, anticipating a low participation while the prospect of a third confinement is in everyone's mind.
But the challenge is to
"recreate a dynamic (...) of struggle and mobilization"
, to re-establish links with union representatives and employees, hoping that this will
"snowball"
and lead to a mobilization of magnitude at the time of the lifting of health restrictions.
Already,
"social anger"
is there,
"the concern, it is expressed"
, underlined Sunday on RTL the secretary general of the CGT, Philippe Martinez.
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The month of January was punctuated by several sectoral mobilizations, with some success according to the unions: health professionals on the 21st, from the National Education on the 26th, from the energy sector on the 28th.
“There are a lot of places of tension ”,
underlines the general secretary of Force Ouvrière Yves Veyrier.
Invited by the CGT to join the movement, the organization declined, however.
"I am not convinced that the conditions are met today"
for a mobilization of scale, underlined Yves Veyrier to AFP.