While nurses in England today, Wednesday, began a new strike in order to improve wages and working conditions, France is preparing for a massive strike day tomorrow, Thursday, with trains stopped and schools closed in protest against the pension reform project.

With the strikes renewed, a YouGov poll published today revealed that a third of nurses and midwives in the public sector said they would have chosen another profession if they had gone back in time.

For its part, the government denounced the disruption caused by strikes in the middle of winter, and it wants to pass a law obliging employees to guarantee a minimum level of services in certain sectors, including health.

Writing in The Independent, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said introducing "unsustainable" increases would mean "reducing patient care and exacerbating inflation that will make us all poorer".

He called for a "constructive dialogue" with the unions, expressing his desire to reach an agreement on a minimum level of services to ensure "continuous protection of patients."

The minister confirmed that the nurses' strike for two days last December led to the cancellation of 30,000 operations and appointments.

People aren't dying because nurses are striking.

Nurses are striking because people are dying.

Today RCN members fought for #FairPayForNursing to protect their patients & the future of the NHS.

We'll be back out tomorrow, find your nearest picket: https://t.co/QoroubKPcJ pic.twitter.com/cMhFZAAnxv

— The RCN (@theRCN) January 18, 2023

The government rejects the increases demanded by the union to compensate for inflation, which reached 10.5% last month.

According to a poll published by Ipsos today, Wednesday, 57% of Britons believe that the government bears the greatest responsibility for the length of the nurses' strike.

And 90% expressed sympathy for patients whose care is disrupted by strikes in a public health system already battered by years of underfunding and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The striking doctors staged a demonstration in Paris earlier this month (Reuters)

Security concerns in France

In France, employees in sectors such as transport, education and energy throughout the country will participate in the strike tomorrow, at a time when the Ministry of the Interior expects the participation of “about a thousand” demonstrators who “may resort to violence,” announcing that it will mobilize more than 10 thousand police, including 3500 in Paris. , to ensure security.

The energy union has threatened to cut off electricity supplies to lawmakers and billionaires before tomorrow's strike.

The government warned that the move would "disrupt" the country and hoped it would not last long.

"Thursday will be very difficult, big disruptions in transport," said Transport Minister Clement Bonn, calling for postponing movement and working from home.

The Civil Aviation Authority asked airlines to cancel a fifth of all flights from Paris-Orly airport on Thursday due to the strike by air traffic controllers.

On the railways, the national company SSCF expects "significant disruptions", with only a third or even a fifth of express trains running, and one regional train out of 10.

The demonstrators and strikers are protesting against President Emmanuel Macron's project to reform the retirement system, as his main clause of raising the retirement age to 64 years instead of 62 collides with a unified trade union front and widespread popular rejection.

Macron's project may lead to a political crisis for a government that enjoys only a relative majority in the National Assembly (parliament), as it is opposed by both the left and the extreme right, while the right-wing opposition is calling for a possible settlement.