Caregivers, teachers, energy workers, yellow vests... why anger is overflowing
Healthcare workers, teachers, energy workers, residents of Hagondange and Commercy. Caught up in their own difficulties, they were all feeling a bit down. Austerity policies are about to bring their hopes and discontents together.
Anger rose slowly. Surprisingly, in fact. On July 15, with his École Normale Supérieure professorial tone, François Bayrou made no secret of the severity of his austerity plan for public spending in 2026. Private sector employees and civil servants, the sick, retirees, social security recipients, and the unemployed: all would have to pay up.
But swallowing the indigestible list of cuts takes time: freezing of social benefits, a tax-free year and de-indexation of pensions ; disappearance of two public holidays and undermining of labor law and the fifth week of paid leave; elimination of 3,000 public sector jobs, heralding the non-replacement of one in three departures; drastic cuts in unemployment insurance to remove 2 billion euros from the unemployed; doubling of medical deductibles and compulsory treatment for the treatment of long-term illnesses ... The measures on the wealthy and the 211 billion euros of public aid paid to large companies were, on the other hand, much more meager.
The summer break could have fueled resignation. But knee-jerk reactions shared on social media, as well as the first warnings of a strike at the start of the school year, began to rattle the potentiometers of social anger at the end of July. As vague and disorderly as they were, the calls to "Block Everything" on September 10th made visible the general fed-up feeling that the inter-union movement intends to catalyze on September 18th . It is this rising tension that we are telling you about.
The white coats in the Paris region's hospitals are feeling the blues. It's still possible that the heatwave of August was trying. For the healthcare and paramedical staff at AP-HP, the big blow came on July 15th and François Bayrou's announcement of the 2026 austerity budget . Of the €43.8 billion "efforts," €5 billion relate to health insurance. Public hospitals must once again tighten their belts after years of being on a diet.
At the end of August, the inter-union organization filed a strike notice for the entire month of September. Even after François Bayrou's fall on September 8,...
L'Humanité
