Paris on Sunday (October 16) saw thousands taking to streets to protest rising prices. The protests took place amid weeks of strikes at oil refineries for higher wages. This has spurred demands for a general strike.
The leader of hard-left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), Jean-Luc Melenchon, marched alongside this year’s Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Annie Ernaux. He called a general strike for Tuesday.
“You’re going to live a week like no other, we are the ones who started it with this march,” he told the crowd.
Melenchon followed the footsteps of four unions – but not France’s biggest, the moderate CFDT – which have called for strikes and protests on Tuesday for wage increases.
The unions have also called protests protect the right to strike, after the government ordered requisitioning of some oil refinery workers. This move is being seen by unions as a violation of their constitutional rights.
The march followed a call by the NUPES parliamentary coalition, which hopes to turn the page on domestic violence accusations that have recently dogged senior members.
Gabriel Attal, the Budget Minister accused that left-wing coalition of attempting to exploit the current situation.
“Today’s march is a march of supporters who want to block the country,” he said on French radio station Europe 1.
(With inputs from agencies)
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