The strike is expected to be very well attended at the Paris RATP on 10 November 2022 (AFP / BERTRAND GUAY)
Few subways circulated Thursday morning in Paris due to a strike called by all RATP unions for wage increases and improving working conditions, while other sectors, invited to stop work by the CGT alone, should experience a more modest mobilization.
On line 6, operating only between Nation and Place d’Italie, the trains in circulation were scarcely full, many employees obviously opted for teleworking or a day off before a three-day weekend scheduled for 11 November.
“Frankly it was,” said a woman, hurrying up the platform to the exit. “It’s better than usual!” another rejoiced.
Only fully automated lines 1 and 14 were to operate normally, but with a “risk of saturation”, according to the RATP. Five lines are completely closed (2, 8, 10, 11 and 12), the others run only during peak hours, with severely degraded service.
The situation is no better on RER A, where on average one in three trains circulate. On RER B, the frequency is any other train.
At the SNCF, on the other hand, the movement supported only by the CGT-Cheminots promises to be much less followed, with normal traffic on the TGV and slightly disturbed on the Intercité.
On the TER lines, nine out of ten trains run on average and, in Ile-de-France, some interruptions are expected on some Transilien lines.
– Second floor pensions –
All the unions (CGT, FO, Unsa, Solidaires) of the RATP have long been asking for a mobilization to ask for wage increases and better working conditions.
RATP, like other transport companies, suffers from a chronic staff shortage due to recruitment difficulties and is experiencing an explosion of absenteeism, particularly on its bus network.
Human resources will be “the first topic on the table” after taking office at the helm of the RATP, Jean Castex insisted during Tuesday’s hearing in front of the Senate. The former prime minister has promised the opening of wage negotiations “starting from December 2022”.
RATP agents benefited from an average 5.2% increase in remuneration this year, according to management.
Another reason for mobilization: the future pension reform with a possible postponement of the statutory retirement age and the end of special schemes, anticipates a source close to the management.
It is about “showing that if we want to mobilize, we know how to mobilize”, said on Wednesday Frédéric Souillot, Secretary General of the FO, drawing a parallel with the day of 13 September 2019 that preceded the great mobilization against the pension reform of winter 2019. -2020.
Frédéric Souillot will have to join the RATP forwards in the morning. FO, the council’s second trade union, is the majority among subway drivers.
– Philippe Martinez in Nîmes –
Instead, he will not participate in the demonstration scheduled for the beginning of the afternoon in Paris, which is part of a day of national and inter-professional mobilization at the call of the only CGT recently decided.
FO, which had joined the mobilization day of October 18, at the height of the movement in the refineries, to protest against the requisitions, chose this time not to join the CGT, as did FSU and Solidarity.
The day before the appeal of the CGT alone, on October 27, in the middle of the school holidays, there was little mobilization: the police had identified 14,000 demonstrators in the province and 1,360 in Paris. The CGT hadn’t given a figure.
On Wednesday, Frédéric Souillot chastised the multiplication of the days of the “horse” demonstration, believing that this strategy “is not only counterproductive, secondly it does little to move things, thirdly it wears down the troops”.
The authorities bet between 40 and 50 thousand demonstrators nationwide and “less than 5 thousand in Paris”.
The general secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, will not be in Paris, having chosen to parade in Nîmes where he is traveling in the field of professional elections in the public service.
