"The September 10 appeal reflects exasperation and the expectation of more radical forms of action."

A lecturer in political science at Aix-Marseille University, a specialist in social mobilizations, and the author of Réapprendre à faire grève (Presses universitaires de France, 2024), Baptiste Giraud analyzes what connects and distinguishes the September 10th call from previous movements like the Yellow Vests. He also points out the potential obstacles to a large-scale mobilization.

Without attempting to speak of success or failure, what can we say at this stage about the nature and form of this movement?

We are inclined to make a comparison with the Yellow Vests because it is a call that is not initiated by the leadership of trade unions or established organizations. Another element of comparison, at least in the early stages of these calls, is that it brings together people from very diverse social and political backgrounds. But there are very important differences. The first, which is undoubtedly a consequence of the experience of the Yellow Vests, is that activists quickly appropriated the September 10 call and gave it a connotation that summons the imaginations and demands of the radical social and political left. The other major difference is that the call is more difficult to define in its forms, because it occurs during the week, but without calling for a strike.

Why is it crucial that September 10th is a Wednesday?

The originality of the yellow vests was two things: the roundabouts and the weekends, therefore actions outside of work places and hours. Precisely to facilitate the mobilization of workers who are in great social insecurity, or who work in small businesses where striking is not possible or thinkable. So Wednesday is not neutral: if we call on people to stay at home, for the vast majority of those who work, it means using a RTT or declaring a strike despite everything. This creates an obstacle. Moreover, for a mobilization to take hold, it is not enough for people to share a slogan, they must also share the usefulness of the mode of action that is proposed to them. Calling not to consume, for it to have an effect on the economy, it must be massive and lasting. And then it implies a break in everyone's routines.

Is the mobilization against retirement at 64 in 2023 also a key to understanding what is happening on September 10?

Yes. The call of the 10th reflects a certain form of exasperation and expectation on the part of a part of the citizen base and activists of the social movement, who are calling for more radical forms of action. This can be explained by the failure of the 2023 mobilization, which may have reinforced activists in the idea that spaced-out days of action, in the form of street demonstrations, were not likely to hinder the governments' plans in the current situation. I would add two elements. First, the timing of the announcements, in the middle of summer, a time when it is more difficult to organize since activists are on vacation, as are employees. And then the success of the petition against the Duplomb law , which may have encouraged some to think that initiatives without waiting for national slogans could produce results.

What effect could the radical left have on the movement?

This is the strategic tension of the moment. The fact that the movement has been rallied by experienced activists can structure it, but it can also contribute to closing it off or slowing its expansion. Because it gives it a political tone in the stated objectives, in the forms of action being debated, which are likely to alienate a majority of employees or even moderate activists. This call clearly reflects a very widely shared social discontent, but does it nevertheless reflect an aspiration for a radicalism that would be majority-held? I don't think so.

As I try to show in my work, we are rather in a long period where the difficulty is to organize and translate discontent in a more radical way. We had the demonstration of this in 2023. Despite a favorable configuration – a large social mobilization, union unity , including the CFDT which calls for putting “France on standstill” , which is rare enough to be underlined… – it failed. There was no hard strike movement. And we cannot attribute it to a lack of will on the part of the union leaderships which would have slowed down the mobilization. This illustrates the difficulty well.

What benefit can the unions, which are mobilizing on September 18, draw from this situation?

This puts them back at the center of the social and political game. This already reminds us, as we were able to observe in 2023, that they retain an unparalleled power of mobilization in France. They therefore remain central actors, but weakened. This weakness is structural: only 10% membership among employees. Furthermore, the unions are caught in a tension. We see that the call of the 10th was reinvested by many political activists, on the slogans of dissolution or dismissal of the President of the Republic . However, these are not at all the slogans of the union organizations. Especially the CFDT, which assumes to mobilize on September 18 to create the conditions for a social dialogue.

But this is also true for the CGT. Its leadership is forced to acknowledge that there will be no change on the left, so it has no interest in subscribing to the idea of ​​toughening up the mobilization to provoke a political crisis. Moreover, it is committed to preserving union unity. So it is striving to articulate two strategies: encouraging a dynamic of sustainable action, while finding modalities of action that allow the maintenance of union unity to create a mass and majority mobilization.