Five days before the first round of the legislative elections that are going to change the French political landscape in a very profound way, the strike and protest demonstrations in hospitals confirmed, on Tuesday, that France is entering a zone of deep turbulence.
On the eve of the day of protest, Yves Veyrier, secretary general of Fuerza Obrera (FO), one of the three large national unions, issued this warning: “The utmost urgency is to prevent the reform of the national pension system that is proposed to relaunch the President Macron.”
It was a declaration of preventive war. After the warning, the acts: nine unions were at the forefront, on Tuesday, in more than fifty demonstrations, ‘work meetings’, sit-ins and calls to save the threatened public hospitals.
In the opinion of the Ministry of the Interior, it was a “modest mobilization” of several tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, hospital personnel, at all levels of the national public health system. The nine unions that had called for the day of struggle, on the contrary, announced, late on Tuesday afternoon, “the beginning of a long-term struggle.”
“He who warns is not a traitor,” goes the saying. Five days before very important legislative elections, the start of a predictably long, hard and uncertain ‘war’ is announced.
Pascal Perrineau, influential political scientist, professor at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po. (Cevipof), comments to ABC on the scope of the demonstrations: «The day of struggle of the hospital staff confirms that France is entering an area of significant political turmoil. President Macron may win a parliamentary majority, absolute or relative, in the legislative elections. But he will have a very radical opposition, from the extreme left and extreme right. Inflation, fuel prices, the rise in prices of basic necessities, threaten to provoke protest movements. Just re-elected, Macron finds himself with a social foliage that can grow.
