Posted on 04/19/2018 9:10:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
French rail workers spoke of their anger over the government’s proposed reforms to France’s national rail service as they took part in a day of mass protests on Thursday.
President Emmanuel Macron faced mass protests Thursday as trade unionists seek to galvanize striking train drivers, angry students and public sector workers and into a joint movement against his multi-pronged drive to overhaul the French economy.
The hard-line CGT union has urged the broad spectrum of groups opposed to Macron’s overhauls to come together on the streets, with some left-wingers dreaming of a re-run of the huge May 1968 demonstrations that shook France half a century ago.
Pressure has been mounting on Macron nearly a year since the 40-year-old centrist swept to power, with a survey by IFOP-Fiducial released Wednesday suggesting that 58 percent of voters were unhappy with his presidency.
And on Thursday, French rail workers didn’t hold back when voicing their anger against the French president and his plans to reform France’s national rail service, including the removal of the special status enjoyed by SNCF employees. […]
“I am on strike to defend and preserve the public railway service,” Armand, a 50-year-old signalman in Paris told The Local. “Privatization is hell. We never go on strike for pleasure. We are fighting for people to have a better service tomorrow.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.fr ...
Going on strike is the French National Pastime.
fighting against privitization??? of course they are...cushy overpaid, benefits galore...all that would be on the line if it went private, competition does that....better for everyone, except the lazy union worker.
Trains in the UK were privatized back in the 90s. No problem.
Macron is proving to be more ballsy than I would have ever thought.
Can't tell if it was a joke, because Binoche chastises Reno, French ex-pat living in NYC on his way to a funeral, for complaining about how nothing works in France.
Yet, the strike screwed up Binoche's chance for a clean getaway from her abusive rail worker bf.
Um, that's probably rail "worker".
I’ll have to look for that, I like everything Reno is in.
Pity the infrastructure was not. That’s owned by “Network Rail”, as it was owned by “Railtrack” before that.
This is why the middle east invasion of socialist France will continue unabated. If people don’t want to work but wants to get paid, then you have to brining in somebody willing to work or everyone starves.
This is also why socialist Marine Le Pen is no savior. She sees only the symptom but not the root cause.
Maybe Marine Le Pen isn’t the one, but Marion probably is, considering she goes even farther and actually DOES pin the blame on May 1968 at the very least. Just look at her speech at CPAC.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.