Alexis Moreau is a journalist and French labor movement researcher
December 5 is strike day in France, as trade unions mobilize against Emmanuel Macron’s assault on pensions. But as the gilets jaunes protests have shown, only a movement rallying wider layers of working people will be able to push back Macron’s neoliberal agenda.
Shutting down ports, roads, and railways has long been a key weapon of French labor. But overreliance on small groups of workers in “strategic industries” can also demobilize broader social movements.