PARIS, France (CCTV) — Nearly 400,000 employees from the public sector took to the streets on Tuesday in 90 provinces across France to protest against pro-market President Emmanuel Macron’s reform measures in the public sectors.
The country’s nine public sector unions, representing 5.4 million workers at public services, backed the protest call, the first such move in a decade.
The reform measures, scheduled to be included in the 2018 Budget Bill, include cutting 120,000 jobs in five years, freezing rise of basic wages and postponing the release of sick leave subsidies.
The trade unions say these measures will affect the public service employees’ life and further decrease their purchasing power.
“The public service employees’ purchasing power has been stagnant. For us school doctors, our purchasing power has already been on the decline,” said Jocelyne Grousset, a school doctor.
Macron’s measures came under the pressure of cutting public spending and controlling fiscal deficit.
According to data from the Ministry for Finance and Public Accounts, public spending had accounted for 56.4 percent of France’s GDP in 2016, and the fiscal deficit still not back to the EU standard of under three percent.
“We are the least-paid doctors in public sectors. Now we cannot see clear our future. This also indicates that the country does not care about the health conditions of the students. This is why we take to the street today,” said Grousset.
The French general trade union said it will call to stage another protest on Oct. 19 against all social and economic reform measures that have been released by the government.
Despite street protests which prompted a fall in his public support, France’s youngest head of state in modern history, Macron signed, last month, the controversial new labor rules into law which will take effect by year-end.
He will meet heads of trade unions on Thursday and Friday to negotiate on vocational training, unemployment insurance and other reforms.
