Big marches took place across France last Saturday, showing the continuing readiness to fight President Emmanuel Macron’s “reforms” that attack workers and aid the rich.
Around 80,000 demonstrated in Paris and almost 300,000 in around 200 protests across the country.
The “popular tide” movement brought together campaign groups, social movements, trade unions and political parties. The sense of unity is very popular, particularly as such organisations rarely come together for a single mobilisation.
“Everyone who is suffering—we’re all on the streets,” health worker Mathidle told Socialist Worker from a demonstration in Toulouse. “Now let’s strike together.”
But there are different visions of where this process goes. For Jean-Luc Melenchon of the left wing France Insoumise party, the key question is the creation of a “popular front”. He doesn’t say it, but the longer term intention is to bolster an electoral project.
Olivier Besancenot of the revolutionary socialist NPA said that the “tide” must rise high enough to produce new levels of strikes.