From EuroNews, October 22:
Disappointed after meeting, French unions call for 5 November action
Trade unions, unanimously disappointed after their meeting with the government, are calling for a large mobilisation on 5 November. The CGT's general secretary is urging workers to "generalise the strike".
Union leaders who met Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu at the Matignon on Wednesday left the nearly two-and-a-half-hour meeting disappointed.
According to Sophie Binet, head of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Sébastien Lecornu did not announce "any measures" to respond to the multiple protests. There was "no consideration of our demands", she lamented.
The CGT, which took part in the 17 October demonstrations that degenerated into riots and looting in several cities over the weekend, will once again take to the streets on Saturday for the "act II" of the cost-of-living mobilisation announced by a "yellow vest" coordination.
For the unions, the central objective remains the mobilisation launched by almost all of them among private- and public-sector employees for 5 November. "The time has come to move the mobilisation up a gear; from that date strike action must take over", said Sophie Binet.
By then, the secretary-general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT, the country’s largest union), Marylise Léon, expects "social responses" to workers’ expectations.
According to the president of the French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC), Cyril Chabanier, the government has nonetheless "opened the door" to "a discussion" on raising the minimum wage. On this issue, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called for things to "move quickly".
At Matignon, the unions also regretted that secondary school and student organisations had not been invited to the meeting.
They are expected to be received again on Monday by the education minister. Édouard Geffray has promised initial measures to respond to the demands expressed on the platform set up by the government. Secondary school pupils have been mobilised for several weeks, with the support of university students, calling for more resources for education, improvements to the state of school buildings, replacement for absent teachers and the scrapping of the Parcoursup platform which handles tertiary education access and is seen as deeply flawed....
....MUCH MORE
She reminds me of another French activist/politician:
Schoolboy French translation: "I must follow them for I am their leader.
As he saw the mob moving past his town house during the Revolution of 1848.
