Skip to content

France

French Rail Workers Mobilize To Save Rail Freight Operator

May 19, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Trade unions and rail and freight workers in France have intensified their campaign to save freight operator Fret SNCF, a subsidiary of the state-owned National Society of French Railway (SNCF). On Tuesday, May 16, the workers, responding to the call of unions including CGT des Cheminots which is affiliated to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), marched to the Ministry of Transport in Paris, demanding that the freight company being saved from liquidation. Union representatives also held talks with the SNCF management and other transport authorities on the same day. Earlier this year, on January 18, the European Commission opened an investigation into support measures taken up by the SNFC to help Fret SNCF, such as capital injection and debt cancellation, during the 2007-2019 period, which allegedly do not comply with European state aid rules.

Neo-Nazi Terror Threat Grows As Ukraine Fighters Jailed In France

May 9, 2023 Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone. , , , , ,
On April 24th 2023, two French neo-Nazis were jailed for 15 months, nine of which were suspended, for possessing assault rifle ammunition. The pair had returned to Paris from Ukraine two days earlier, and were arrested at customs. Both were on the radar of French domestic spying agency DGSI, which held files on them for endangering state security. According to the French outlet Mediapart, one was a veteran of Chasseurs Alpins (Alpine Hunters), France’s elite mountain infantry force. He was thrown out of the military after his neo-Nazi sympathies were exposed online. The other is a notorious local far-right activist.

French Workers Take The Streets As Pension Reform Becomes Law

April 16, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Spontaneous protests broke out in France on April 14, Friday, after the country’s Constitutional Council ratified the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64, the most controversial aspect of the pension reforms pushed by the Emmanuel Macron-led government. Macron signed the bill into law early on Saturday. Even though the Council struck down certain provisions of the bill, it also rejected the first version of the Referendum of Shared Initiative (RIP) on the implementation of the reforms. The proposal for the referendum was submitted by the MPs from the left-wing New Ecologic and Social Peoples Union’s (NUPES) coalition. The Constitutional Council will decide on a second RIP on May 3.

Macron Says Europe Shouldn’t Follow The United States On China

April 10, 2023 Dave DeCamp, AntiWar.com. , , ,
French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that Europe should not follow the US and risk a confrontation with China over Taiwan as he was returning to France from a visit to Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a conversation with POLITICO, Macron discussed his desire for Europe to have “strategic autonomy” and to become a “third superpower,” which he said wouldn’t be able to happen if Europe is involved in a conflict over Taiwan. He said Europe faces a “great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”

France’s Pension Protests Are A Feminist Reckoning

April 8, 2023 Nina Pasquini, In These Times. , , ,
The situation is set to get worse under France’s controversial pension reform, which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 and increases the contributions necessary for a full pension from 42 to 43 years of full-time, uninterrupted work. The reform — which was forced through parliament without a vote on March 16 — has ignited mass opposition, with a March 28 survey showing seven out of 10 French people disapproving of the change.

French Pension Protesters Occupy BlackRock, Torch Restaurant

April 7, 2023 Snejana Farberov, New York Post. , , , ,
A new wave of unrest over a pension reform engulfed Paris and other French cities Thursday, with enraged protesters occupying the building of the US-based investment firm BlackRock and setting fire to a popular restaurant favored by President Emmanuel Macron. Dozens of trade union members streamed into BlackRock’s Paris offices in the historical Centorial building, where they set off firecrackers and chanted slogans directed at the company’s private pension fund. “The government wants to throw away pensions, it wants to force people to fund their own retirement with private pension funds, but what we know is that only the rich will be able to benefit from such a setup,” said protester Françoise Onic, a school teacher.

The French People Battle Pension Reform In Paris

April 4, 2023 Alex Litsardakis, Unicorn Riot. , , , , ,
This second, and last, term of presidency for Emmanuel Macron has been highlighted with increased police violence. The French parliament passed a bill making it obligatory to declare every demonstration to the authorities. Declared demonstrations, for the most part, do not face police violence. Yet, last month demonstrators of all ages were on the streets of France every day, rioting and expressing their anger at the decisions of president Macron. These spontaneous non-declared demonstrations are being targeted by police. The latest incidents in Saint Soline on March 25, demonstrate how police are dealing with protestors, leaving one person in a coma and several injured or even mutilated.

French Streets And American Sofas

March 31, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
You might be Brazilian or Malian or Singaporean, it is remarkable the world over to watch the French explode into the streets of dozens of cities and towns to protest the imperial president residing in Élysée Palace. It is altogether singular to follow the demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron as an American. The French are still citoyens and take to their streets and public squares. Americans long ago cashed in their citizenship to live as consumers—and take to their sofas no matter how abusively political elites treat them, no matter how many wars they start, no matter how corrupt the financial system, no matter how many people live in poverty, no matter how grotesque the “defense” budget, no matter how poisoned the environment, no matter… let me not go on.

Pension Reform Or Revolution!

March 30, 2023 Muhammed Shabeer, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Major trade unions in France estimate that two million people hit the streets across France on Tuesday, March 28, denouncing the controversial pension reforms pushed by Emmanuel Macron’s government. The reforms were forcibly passed in the National Assembly on March 16 using Article 49.3 to bypass the parliamentary vote. The move has further weakened the legitimacy of the reforms, already detested by the majority of the French working class. While the government, headed by President Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, narrowly survived a no-confidence vote on March 20, the approval rating of the president has plummeted along with political ‘good will’ for his neo-liberal Renaissance (RE) party, as anger against the anti-worker pension reforms rages across the country.

Despite Government Attacks: Workers, Students In France Stay Strong

March 29, 2023 G. Dunkel, Workers World. , , ,
Since President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Élizabeth Borne rammed through the “reform” of France’s pension system March 16 — an attack which will require workers to work longer to obtain a full pension — the class struggle has grown more intense.  Millions of workers struck on March 23 to protest this new law, which extends their retirement age to 64 from 62. The law must still be reviewed by the Constitutional Council, which can reject or modify it. The new pension law provides fewer protections for workers who have arduous jobs and/or dangerous working conditions.

Fresh Clashes Rock France As Protests Shift To Water Dispute

March 29, 2023 Agence France Press, South China Morning Post. , , ,
French police again clashed with protesters on Saturday as campaigners in the southwest sought to stop the construction of giant water storage facilities, the latest flashpoint as social tensions erupt nationwide. The violent scenes at Sainte-Soline came after days of unrest over President Emmanuel Macron’s pensions reform, which forced the cancellation of a visit by Britain’s King Charles. The protest movement against the pension reform has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of Macron’s second mandate, with police and protesters clashing daily in Paris and other cities over the past week.

Protests Rage In France For A Tenth Day

March 28, 2023 Al Jazeera. , , ,
Protests and strikes against unpopular pension reforms kicked off again Tuesday across France, with police security ramped up amid government warnings that radical demonstrators intended “to destroy, to injure and to kill”. Concerns that violence could mar the demonstrations prompted what Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described as an unprecedented deployment of 13,000 officers, nearly half of them concentrated in the French capital. After months of upheaval, an exit from the firestorm of protest triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s changes to France’s retirement system looked as far away as ever.

Refinery Workers In France Refuse To Break Strike

March 25, 2023 Nathan Erderof , Left Voice. , , ,
In the midst of the energy strike in France, the fuel shortages affecting the southern and western regions of the country are creating a dire situation at the country’s airports. On Wednesday evening, the French government decided to intervene at the largest refinery in France, Total Normandy. Under threat of imprisonment and excessive fines, the state attempted to force the strikers back to work to ship kerosene to the airports. These anti-strike measures called “requisitions” are a legal weapon used by the French state to stifle collective worker action and save capitalist profits. Faced with this offensive on Wednesday evening, the refiners at CGT Total Normandy called all the union members of Le Havre to a rally in front of the refinery.

France In Revolt

March 24, 2023 Greanville Post. , , , ,
Despite the absence of genuine revolutionary forces capable of providing honest and reliable leadership, France is apparently stumbling toward a pre-revolutionary juncture, as the videos on this page seem to suggest. It's undeniable that not just France, but all of Western Europe is being increasingly shaken, rendered profoundly unstable, by the same disease afflicting the rest of the continent, along with much of what its numerous apologists insist on calling "the West", a devious way of referring to Western imperialism, a decadent, out-of-touch, war-addicted, and ultimately unfixable, form of financialised neoliberalism.

Pesticide Giant Criticised For ‘Greenwashing’ Partnership

March 24, 2023 Clare Carlile, Desmog. , , ,
Bayer, the world’s second largest crop chemicals company, sponsored a French influencer to create and share pro-pesticides content with over 300,000 followers on her Instagram account, an investigation has revealed. Jenny Letellier – one of France’s biggest YouTubers with nearly 4 million subscribers – has come under fire for the sponsored content, which was broadcasted via a series of videos from France’s leading agriculture fair last month. This content was produced in conjunction with Morgan Niquet, a YouTuber with 1.3 million subscribers. French media outlet Vakita, which broke the story, obtained a copy of the contract between the German multinational and Letellier that specified how the social media campaign was tailored to meet clear PR objectives for the company.
«12345678910»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.