Strike: 30,400 demonstrators according to the Ministry of the Interior, more than 100,000 according to the CGT

Europe 1 with AFP 9:24 p.m., November 10, 2022

The strike at the call of all the unions of the RATP severely disrupted the circulation of the Parisian metros and RERs on Thursday, an impact which contrasted with the weak mobilization of the national day of action organized in parallel by the CGT.

The trade union center counted "more than 100,000" demonstrators in France, the Ministry of the Interior 30,400.

It is certainly higher than the figures of the day of action of October 27, organized in full school holidays: the police had identified 14,000 demonstrators in the provinces and 1,360 in Paris, the CGT not giving a figure.

But the figures are significantly lower than those of the mobilization of October 18 (300,000 demonstrators in France according to the CGT, 107,000 according to the Ministry of the Interior).

On the other hand, transport users in Ile-de-France had to deal with a very disturbed situation.

Even if chaos was avoided in the morning in Ile-de-France, where many employees had obviously followed the recommendations to telecommute.

Others chose walking, biking, driving, or a day off.

Difficulties present at the start of the evening

Difficulties were still present at the start of the evening.

"I understood that line 3 had to work in the afternoon. I must have looked badly. I'm going to walk", says, resigned, Sophie Gauthier, executive met rue Réaumur, in the center of Paris, who was to again take a train from Saint-Lazare station, four stations away.

Five lines were closed (2, 8, 10, 11 and 12), the others only running at peak times, with a severely degraded service.

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All the unions (CGT, FO, Unsa, Solidaires) of the RATP had long called for mobilization to demand wage increases and improved working conditions.

At the same time, the CGT had organized, alone, this new national day of interprofessional mobilization on wages, even if in certain departments it was joined by the FSU and Solidaires.

"There is a real problem of purchasing power in this country, it is only by increasing wages that we can solve it", hammered the secretary general of the CGT Philippe Martinez, in the parade of Nîmes, where he had gone to meet the CHU strikers.

But few people took to the streets.

The police counted a thousand demonstrators in Lyon, 650 in Lille, 300 in Bordeaux.

In Paris, they were 10,000 according to the CGT, 2,400 according to the police.

Roussel calls for "reoccupying the roundabouts"

In Lille, Léonie Cornette, 20, an art history student, megaphone under her arm and jeans cap with "CGT" on it, recognizes a mobilization "a little disappointing on the last dates".

But "salaries are not increasing, neither are scholarships. Some students interrupt their current years because they no longer have the means", she is indignant.

Patricia Champ, a 67-year-old retiree in the parade in Lyon, calls for "the indexation of low wages or pensions".

"Me, it's mainly for vegetables (...) Salads, tomatoes, zucchini, it has almost doubled," she says.

Present in the Parisian procession, the national secretary of the PCF Fabien Roussel called on the employees to "reoccupy the roundabouts and the public space".

The deputy from the North "regretted that we were not all together".

The secretary general of Force Ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot, had indeed not called for this national mobilization, criticizing these “leapfrog” days of action.

However, he made the trip to the RATP to support his majority troops among the drivers and welcomed "a full and complete mobilization".

Wage increases and working conditions

The representative unions (CGT, FO and Unsa) of the Parisian authority are demanding wage increases as a priority, but also an improvement in working conditions and recruitment.

"Today is a big warning shot and we hope they will hear it," said CGT-RATP secretary general Bertrand Hammache.

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The RATP does not envisage a new salary increase in the immediate future (+5.2% in 2022 according to management) but Jean Castex, whose appointment as head of the management was validated by Parliament on Wednesday, made know that he would open negotiations as early as December.

Another reason for mobilization: the future pension reform with a possible postponement of the legal retirement age and the end of special schemes.