Strikes, picket lines, demonstrations, and police repression. Hundreds of thousands of people unleashed a nationwide day of protest on September 10, with blockades and marches in major cities. This day of action has been several weeks in the making, with preparation in general assemblies led by workers, students, social organizations, anti-racist groups, political organizations, and unions. The day’s events come in the middle of a profound political crisis facing the regime.

On Monday, a vote of confidence in Parliament led to the resignation of Prime Minister François Bayrou after he attempted to pass an unpopular budget proposal with sweeping austerity measures. The government’s justifications of fiscal responsibility rang hollow amid massive military spending by the state.

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The austerity measures in the budget was the kindling that inflamed the anger of the working class. The protests drew workers into the streets despite calls by union leaders in the Intersyndicale — the country’s largest union federation — to hold separate actions on September 18. They are fighting not only against this austerity budget, but to recover the gains snatched from them in recent years by a government that is now undergoing its worst crisis yet.

A letter signed by 300 leaders and representatives of various unions published ahead of the actions on September 10 called for the construction of a grassroots social movement without acquiescing to union leaders’ attempts to delay the protests and pick a more “convenient” day for limited strikes. They linked the struggle against the austerity bill to the fight against the pension reform in 2023:

We are workers from different sectors: energy, refineries, railways, public transport, health, industry, public services, education, and elsewhere. In 2023, during the battle over pensions, we pushed for a hard, general, and renewable strike, contrary to the strategy of the Intersyndicale, which called for staggered days of action. We also haven’t forgotten that our union leaders turned their backs on the yellow vests at the beginning of their movement.

The statement continued:

During the summer, popular anger crystallized around a date to “block everything”: September 10. Although some organizations such as the CGT [General Confederation of Labor] and Solidaires [a major union federation] are calling for mobilization on that day, the Intersyndicale has proposed another date, the 18th, and is avoiding the 10th. The CFDT [French Democratic Confederation of Labour] justifies this strategy by explaining that “we need someone to talk to” and that the protesters on the 10th will have no one to talk to.

This energy and willingness to mobilize from below led to the formation of general assemblies in major cities across the country where workers, students, and political organizations met together to make a plan for September 10 and discuss how to carry the struggle forward. Hundreds of people showed up to these meetings, bringing conclusions from previous experiences, such as the fight against the pension reform, railway strikes, and even the Yellow Vest movement. 

Marches, Blockades, Strikes … and Repression

In dozens of cities — such as Paris, Nantes, Marseille, Lyon, and Montpellier — hundreds of protesters blocked several bus stations, schools, and highways in the morning. These actions were followed by mass demonstrations that brought together hundreds of thousands of people.

The organized working class was at the center of the action, leading strikes and pickets in the morning. Around 5:00 a.m., a general assembly was held at the TotalEnergies Normandy refinery near Le Havre, and 30 percent of workers voted to go on strike. “It is grassroots organization that will allow us to build a strong movement that reflects the deep rejection of Macron’s policies,” said Alexis Antonioli of the CGT Normandy refinery union. At the TotalEnergies Fezyn refinery in the department of Rhône, nearly 40 percent of refiners went on strike.

In the transportation sector, there were blockades and pickets at bus stations and at RATP stations (the public transportation service in Paris). Several protests were met with attacks by the police. Railworkers for the SNCF walked off the job as well. The strike disrupted service not only for intercity trains, but regional trains as well. At the SNCF Technical Center in Châtillon, the strike enjoyed broad support, with more than 80 percent of workers going on strike. 

In addition, a general assembly of railway workers in Paris gathered over 150 supporters in the morning. On the initiative of the Sud Rail Paris Nord union, a large general assembly was scheduled to bring together the “Block Everything” movement at the Gare du Nord [North Station] at 11:00 a.m. 

Thousands of people gathered at the Gare du Nord in Paris to answer the call of the railway workers. A large column was blocked and cornered by the police, who did not hesitate to attack protesters. The police charged at the demonstrators to prevent them from gathering in a general assembly. However, as our comrade Anasse Kazib, leader of Révolution Permanente and railway worker, denounced: “They can repress us, but they will not prevent us from organizing to continue the movement!” Several hundred people participated in the assembly in front of the station.

Police repression continued throughout the day. Despite the government’s assertion for weeks that the protests were marginal, they deployed 80,000 police officers and gendarmes across France. They tried to prevent blockades and rallies from marching to connect with picket lines at workplaces across the country. 295 people were arrested throughout France, with 171 arrests occurring in Paris alone.

Another key player in the day’s events was secondary school students. Students picketed at around fifty high schools across France on Wednesday morning in support of the movement and against the government’s austerity and militarist policies. In Paris, more than ten high schools were blockaded.

In Chambéry, in front of the Vaugelas high school, students chanted slogans in support of the Palestinian people and denounced police repression. At the Bellevue high school in Le Mans, hundreds of students gathered in front of their school to protest against the government’s austerity policies. Dozens of other high schools faced protests in northern France.

Faced with the anger of students spreading across the country, and despite the fact that the regime has never been so weak, the government is seeking to stifle the movement. From 6:30 a.m., police arrived at numerous blockades and violently repressed the students. At Henri IV in Paris, they pushed them against the wall and intimidated them with violent and insulting comments. One police officer told them, “Don’t cry like a girl” and “I’m going to bang your head against the wall, it will be your music lesson.” At other schools, students were sprayed with tear gas.

These early morning actions led into massive rallies and marches in the afternoon. With several tens of thousands of people in Marseille and Toulouse, more than 10,000 in Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes, 6,000 in Chambéry and 2,000 in Aix-en-Provence, the demonstrations were expansive, expressing broad anger — against austerity offensives, anti-worker policies, the genocide in Gaza, and of course the figure of Emmanuel Macron, who was the target of many chants and signs. In Paris, thousands of people converged in the afternoon at Place de la République, Place du Châtelet, and Place des Fêtes. In Montpellier, one protester described the mobilization as “comparable to certain demonstrations during the pension battle.”

Police repression was not enough to stifle the anger in the streets and the energy of the protesters who will not sit by as the government eats away at their futures. The hundreds of thousands of workers, students, and people marching and striking across the country have not been moved by the maneuvers of Parliament to contain their rage. People are fed up with a government that passes astronomical defense budgets as cover for attacking the hard-won gains of the workers movement. In the city of Orleans, more than 5,000 protesters took to the streets shouting “Macron, resign.”

With another day of action planned for September 18, this is only the beginning. After the day of action, workers, students, and other protesters gathered in the evening for assemblies to plan the road ahead. Five thousand people gathered in Paris, with hundreds coming together in cities across the country. Workers and students across France are saying clearly that they will no longer be the ones who are made to pay for the chaos consuming the Fifth Republic. While the regime scrambles from one crisis to another, the working class and oppressed are showing that there is another way out.