{"id":468641,"date":"2025-10-02T14:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/468641\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T14:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:30:13","slug":"french-unions-strike-demand-end-to-austerity-and-macrons-spending-cuts-emmanuel-macron-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/468641\/","title":{"rendered":"French unions strike, demand end to austerity and Macron\u2019s spending cuts | Emmanuel Macron News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands turn out, but numbers are fewer so far than last protest that drew half a million people to the streets.<\/p>\n

Trade unions in France are carrying out another day of widespread nationwide strikes, heaping pressure on the newly appointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to reverse an existing austerity programme and halt any new public spending cuts.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s Ministry of the Interior said approximately 85,000 people had turned out across the country by midday on Thursday, excluding Paris \u2013 a figure lower than a strike two weeks earlier, which drew much larger crowds, indicating lower overall turnout.<\/p>\n

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Police said 500,000 people attended the last demonstrations<\/a>, while trade unions put the figure at one million. The protests led to clashes across France\u2019s cities between the demonstrators and police, with the latter firing tear gas and arresting about 140 people across the country.<\/p>\n

France deployed some 76,000 police officers, including gendarmes across the country for the protests, outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Thursday, including 5,000 in Paris, where between 20,000 and 40,000 people are expected to take to the streets.<\/p>\n

Authorities said they expected 250 rallies to take place in cities across the country.<\/p>\n

Two major strikes organised by trade unions have taken place this month and have been triggered by widespread opposition to an austerity budget that the country\u2019s leadership has been trying to push through parliament.<\/p>\n

President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s most recent prime minister, Francois Bayrou, became a political casualty earlier this year of an unpopular budget that would have imposed 44 billion euros ($52bn) in cuts to local government spending and health, along with a freeze on government expenditure, to bring Paris\u2019s growing deficit and debt challenges under control. Bayrou has previously described France\u2019s debt as \u201clife-threatening<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

France has struggled for years to rein in its ballooning deficit and mounting debt, with successive governments confronting fierce public resistance to spending cuts.<\/p>\n

The current impasse reflects a broader political paralysis. Macron\u2019s government lacks a parliamentary majority and faces a fragmented opposition that agrees on the need to cap spending but not on how the burden should be shared.<\/p>\n

Lecornu has promised to change the course of his predecessor but told Le Parisien newspaper that delivering on the issue would affect the country\u2019s financial credibility and eventually its households. \u201cThe IMF isn\u2019t at the gates of Bercy. But pretending that we can let things slide without impact on our fellow citizens isn\u2019t true either,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Union leaders have warned Lecornu, a former defence minister, who is yet to name a cabinet, against trying to propose a similar budget, and have been pushing for a wealth tax, in addition to a reversal of earlier measures, which included a change to pensions and pushing France\u2019s retirement age from 62 to 64.<\/p>\n

The unions have said they want \u201cfiscal justice\u201d, which they have said would shift the responsibility for maintaining public services fairly across society.<\/p>\n

Lecornu is expected to share his budget in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Sophie Binet, the leader of the General Confederation of Labour, one of France\u2019s largest trade unions, told local media, \u201cwaffle-talk or half-baked measures won\u2019t solve this problem. We must respond to social demands and definitively bury all the sacrifices for the working world planned in the Bayrou copy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binnet added that the \u201csocial anger is enormous\u201d and wasn\u2019t going to stop.<\/p>\n

Manuel Bompard, a leader in the left-wing La France Insoumise party said these were \u201cvery political mobilisations\u201d which were against \u201cthe policies of the government and the President of the Republic\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands turn out, but numbers are fewer so far than last protest that drew half a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[34,2000,299,36,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-468641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-emmanuel-macron","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115305055900549994","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}