French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu met employer organisations and private-sector unions at Matignon on Monday, opening a week of high-stakes talks aimed at calming cost-of-living protests that have shaken France for weeks.
According to QNC News, Lecornu met the groups on Monday morning to address wages and purchasing power. The social conference, announced after nationwide protests last week, brought unions and employers together at the prime minister’s office.
The government’s offer
The government put a modest minimum-wage proposal on the table, according to QNC News and Particle News. It offered to bring forward the automatic inflation adjustment from January to December and to add a discretionary boost of about €22 net a month, which would take the minimum wage close to €1,500 net.
The minimum wage currently stands at €1,478 net a month after a rise of €35 in June that reflected higher inflation, according to QNC News. Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou, who attended the talks, has said he would like the figure to pass €1,500 net, provided the increase does not harm employment.
Lecornu presented the full package of government measures at a press conference later on Monday.
Unions say it falls far short
The unions made clear the offer falls far short of their demands. The CFDT, the largest union confederation in France, is calling for a rise of €100 net, while the CGT is demanding an increase of 10 percent, worth about €150 net, according to QNC News.
“The hike cannot be 5 euros, the price of a kilo of tomatoes,” CGT leader Sophie Binet said on Monday, warning that anger would not disappear, according to QNC News.
The CFTC is seeking about 2 percent, according to Particle News.
The conference also exposed the limits of the process. Public-sector unions were not invited to the Monday session and will be received separately on Friday 13 November, a decision that has fuelled resentment among civil servants, according to QNC News and Particle News. Education unions have called a strike for Tuesday 10 November.
The 5 November demonstrations drew about 575,000 people according to the Interior Ministry, against more than one million claimed by organisers, according to coverage of the social conference. Protests were reported across France, with Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Rennes, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Rouen and Dijon among the cities where crowds gathered, according to reports of the marches.
What Lecornu announced
At the press conference, Lecornu confirmed the headline measure: the minimum wage will rise by 1.6 percent from 1 December, taking it to €1,502 net a month — about €24 a month more, according to France 24 and Euronews. Lecornu presented the increase as the second-biggest in 20 years, according to France Info.
The unions were not convinced. “The Prime Minister has made an announcement, that’s good, but there’s a long way to go,” CGT leader Sophie Binet said, according to RFI. With the CFDT seeking €100 net and the CGT seeking about €150 net, the roughly €24 rise leaves the unions’ core demands unmet, and the strike and protest calendar — including Tuesday’s education strike — remains in place.
