The government is concerned about facing the radicalization of the CGT – Le Figaro

Amid grumbling against the El Khomri law, the government is facing a social movement that hardens and builds on the reformist trade unions against the protest organizations.

for a government is never a good sign to see the CGT and FO scroll together, which is a more 1 May For the brothers enemies of unionism, it is a tradition to manifest their separate ways for Labor Day. 2016 will be an exception. Philippe Martinez and Jean-Claude Mailly decided to appear together on Sunday ahead of the Parisian procession

Work Bill actually polarized as ever French syndicalism . On the one hand, the reformers – CFDT, CFTC, CFE-CGC and Fage, for students – have been lobbying for the improvements to the text. With success. On the other, the protesters – the CGT, FO, Solidaires, FSU, UNEF and Fidl for young people – have been demanding for weeks the outright withdrawal of the bill. Without reducing the executive, which is its reformist image and that enough of its close links with the CFDT. Another essential reason: the protesters have not managed to build a “balance of power” in their favor, which would have enabled them to impress the government. Since the peak of 31 March, the number of protesters decreases each day of action: they were only 170,000 Thursday throughout France.

Struggling to mobilize mass protesters unions tend to retreat to their base and radicalize. The movement is very clear to the CGT. In 2017, at the next election tally in enterprises, the central Philippe Martinez is likely to be dethroned by the CFDT union first place in private. Faced with this threat, the CGT chose to react, adopting a line to port.

In his opening speech of the conference in Marseille last week, Philippe Martinez compared the Hollande defense policy to that of “father and son Bush, Putin and Netanyahu” and estimated the CGT was to further alienate the CFDT, while activists booed the representative of the PS. And he has not condemned the poster very polemic Info’com union (employees of Information and Communication CGT) against “police violence”.

What could appear as a tactic of Philippe Martinez to gain legitimacy for re-election to Congress looks increasingly to a forward escape strategy. “The leftist opposition, which accounted for 7% to 10% of the troops of the CGT in the last few years, has tripled in size. And the central barely more to control his more rebellious profiles, “says a government source.

Along with this union mobilization, student protests also tend degenerate and systematic confrontation with the police. Caught between the radicalization of the unions, employees and students, on one side, and calls for the firm issued by the opposition on the other, the government hopes that the discontent will go out of herself Similarly, there will not ultimately “convergence of struggles” as it says Republic square. “I’m not in the social weather, but here, I do not think confided Manuel Valls on the sidelines of his visit to New Caledonia. When it is radicalized and when it shrinks, the violence issues are real. We’ll see. Tuesday, there is the Law on Labour in the National Assembly. We’ll see how things go. “