Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets across France (Picture: X/ Jorge Martin)
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of France in a wave of mass protests and strikes.
The Block Everything movement is a major challenge to neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron as he faces a deepening political crisis.
In Paris, Nantes, Rennes, Lyon and dozens of cities, protesters have marched, blocked bus depots, schools and roads and battled with police. Over 700 strikes have been recorded, according to the CGT union federation.
The Block Everything movement started on social media but then received backing from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s left wing LFI party and several trade unions.
Mathieu, a member of Autonomie De Classe, a revolutionary socialist organisation in France, told Socialist Worker on Wednesday evening that the protests in Paris had “grown and grown and grown”. “In Paris, protesters everywhere going from occupied squares to occupied squares,” he said.
“Everybody is feeling that it is the beginning for us and the end for those in power.
“It was a huge day of protest for a movement called totally beyond the traditional channels of our class, parties and unions.”
Speaking to Socialist Worker from the streets of Paris, Denis Godard described the day as a “dream for revolutionary socialists”. “This is a movement the leadership cannot control,” he said.
The state mobilised 80,000 cops who fired tear gas and flashbang grenades into crowds—but protesters are fighting back.
In Paris, the police charged and tried to stop several thousand protesters joining a rally of rail workers outside the Gare du Nord station.
Protesters resisted and the two groups converged. One campaigner said, “I am here to support all the workers on strike. The 10 September is just the beginning. There will be no stability in this country as long as there is no justice.”
Denis joined a blockade and picket of a bus depot by bus workers at 5.30am. “We were a few hundred,” he described. The bus workers “decided to organise a picket” because they knew “they would have solidarity locally”.
The police attacked it after an hour and cleared the blockade. “One hour later we were blocking a school with teenagers, who even attacked the police,” he said.
“Then a lot of people went to support the hospital workers who were organising a picket locally as well. Then there were a lot of people in the neighbourhood involved in trying to block the road around Paris,” he said.
Anti-racist organisation Marche des Solidarites put a call out to mobilise at La Republique—a central square in Paris—from 11am. Over 10,000 people had joined by Wednesday afternoon.
“The assembly of rail workers has come here as well,” said Denis. “It is incredible. We wanted a place of convergence. It is massive—not only in numbers but also linking the fights against racism and austerity.”
The main Palestine solidarity organisation was mobilising to join the crowds in La Republique at 5pm.
In Montpellier students blocked several schools while over 10,000 marched—the protest was a sea of Palestine flags.
And in Marseille, high school students blockaded their school while tens of thousands marched, setting things on fire as they went.
Protesters blocked the Eurolinks company, which supplies weapon parts to Israel until the police cracked down on the blockade.
In total students blocked around 50 schools across France in support of the movement against austerity. This included over 10 in Paris alone. At a school in Chambery, students chanted in support of Palestine and against police repression.
In Le Mans, hundreds of school students came out against austerity. In Le Havre, in Brest and in Orleans, thousands of protesters are out. It is the same story in Nantes, where thousands gathered in the city centre after blocking streets in the morning.
In Bordeaux, striking workers, students and activists have come together for a 20,000-strong demonstration.
In Orleans, more than 5,000 protesters in the city streets chanted, “Macron resign.”
In Moselle, workers at a logistics management centre struck. The Amazon site in Bretigny was hit by industrial action. Chemical workers in Lyon have struck, and pickets were also seen at the city’s hospitals.
In Aix-En-Provence, more than 2,000 protesters marched to the central square.
In Lyon, blockades grew throughout the morning and then several thousand joined a rally called by the CGT.
The wave of resistance comes only two days after centrist prime minister Francois Bayrou’s government was brought down in a vote of no confidence.
Macron has named his ally Sebastien Lecornu as the new prime minister, but cannot resolve the parliamentary deadlock produced by the June 2024 elections he called.
Many of the biggest unions in France have called for strikes for next Thursday.
The size of the mobilisations on Wednesday shows the potential of resistance. It can go beyond the official strikes called by the union leaders and be sustained into a mass movement.
Mass mobilisations and strikes—and escalating the movement from below—are key to driving out Macron’s rotten regime.
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