French Labor Derailed
Emmanuel Macron looks to have defeated France’s militant rail unions — where next for the movement against his reforms?
French passengers in Paris, France during a national rail strike in 2005. Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images
It has been the riskiest of President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business reforms to date. By proposing to abolish the employment advantages of tens of thousands of rail workers and to eliminate the French National Railway Company (SNCF)’s legal status as a public company — in critics’ view, the first step toward full-scale privatization — his government chose to pick a fight with the most militant section of the French working class.
Yet more than two months after rail unions launched disruptive rolling strikes across the country, vowing a life-or-death struggle, the government has solidly maintained the upper hand. The Senate approved the reform package on June 14 by a 245-82 vote, authorizing the reforms to take effect in January 2020. Labor unions promise to keep striking two days out of five until at least the end of June. After that point, the two most combative rail unions promise to continue strikes in the hopes of swaying contract negotiations with the SNCF. But barring a spectacular turn of events, Macron is poised, yet again, to have his way.
Mustering Strength
Defeating Macron’s reforms was always going to be an uphill struggle. The president’s La République En Marche (LREM) party holds a massive majority in the National Assembly. This means that as with any reform coming from the president’s Élysée Palace, opponents can only hope a combination of protest and negative public opinion will cause the government to apply the brakes. But this never really happened. Public opinion didn’t rally to the side of strikers, simultaneous strikes in the private sector proved short-lived, and civil servants’ unions chose not to throw their lot in with rail workers. And despite all the calls to reignite the spirit of May ’68, the student movement couldn’t muster much by way of support.
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