The strike with a break for holidays and weekends became the main objective of the bill to limit strikes in transport, approved by French senators in first reading, TF1 Info reports on April 9.
Hervé Marcel, a French politician who heads the Union group in the French Senate, proposed a bill in February 2024 that would limit the right to strike on certain days. The French Senate approved it in first reading on April 9, enshrining the right to strike but limiting it to certain periods such as school holidays and public holidays. According to the politician, it was a prohibition on the abuse of the right to strike.
The proposed law would provide the French government with a quota of 30 days a year during which “public transport workers” would be deprived of their right to strike for 7 consecutive days for the duration of the ban. Prohibited days were proposed to include school holidays, public holidays, elections and referendums, and events of “great importance”. However, the ban on strikes will be limited only to peak hours and to the personnel necessary for the operation of the service.
The spokesman for the text, Philippe Tabarot, representative of the Republicans (LR), proposed notifying a strike not 48 hours, but 72 hours before its start. At the same time, raise the “minimum service level” during peak hours, as well as establish an expiration mechanism for some notifications that will not be followed up with actions. He saw this as a way to address inactive notifications, which could sometimes last for months.
If the text is approved by the Senate Legislation Commission, the French Government will oppose it, as it has already warned. This will complicate the inclusion of the draft text on the agenda of the French National Assembly.
For his part, the French Minister of Transport, Patrice Vegriet, stated that giving preference to vacations is equivalent to neglecting the mobility of daily life. Representatives of leftist parties also planned to oppose the text in its entirety.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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