"Let's block everything" on September 10: the main unions are not happy with Jean-Luc Mélenchon's call for a "general strike"

As September 10 approaches, it's hard to know if the pressure cooker of social anger will fizzle out. "It will be an explosive return to work," asserts Julien Troccaz, federal secretary of SUD Rail. While other organizations (CGT, CFE-CGC, FO) view the movement opposing Bayrou's budget plan favorably, despite their reservations, the SUD branch is currently the only organization to clearly call for a blockade, after the left-wing parties, in the wake of La France Insoumise, expressed their support. "We held a democratic consultation in our SUD Rail branches, and we're calling for a firm strike in the railway sector," he says.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon even went further by calling for a "general strike ." "A strike is not declared from a platform or a meeting, it's more complicated than that," the railway worker complains, for whom this call from the rebellious leader is downright "social contempt." "This momentum is a good thing for social justice, but creating a strike is something that needs to be discussed with employees, and it takes time," also tempers Denis Gravouil, a member of the CGT confederal office, who points out that it is not with "a political movement that we can build a strike effectively." "The LFI networks are not (unlike the unions) firmly anchored in companies," he insists.

On Friday morning, before Mélenchon's speech, CGT general secretary Sophie Binet was also cautious about the success of a movement as spontaneous as the one announced on September 10. "The modes of action are unclear," she pointed out on France Inter, saying her union was "very vigilant about attempts at infiltration and instrumentalization by the extreme right, which in certain places is trying to develop anti-union discourse and redirect anger" against "immigrants and foreigners."

Like his CGT counterpart, Frédéric Souillot, general secretary of Force Ouvrière (FO), is skeptical about the chances of success. "Unlike SUD, we are not calling for people to join the call to block everything on September 10th […] There is everything and its opposite in the slogans. We calculated that they had accumulated barely 60,000 likes on their various platforms when our petition [from the inter-union against the Bayrou budget, editor's note] has 350,000 signatures," he declared in La Tribune on Sunday .

"For the moment we are not calling for a blockade, we will wait for the inter-union consultations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa and Solidaires) scheduled for September 1st," says Stanislas Gaudon, president of the Federation of Public Services at the CFE-CGC, the executives' union. While he sees the call launched by Jean-Luc Mélenchon as a "political recovery", he remains impervious: "This kind of strategy has always existed, fortunately, it is not our compass." The CFDT, for its part, is expected to give an initial position this Tuesday, August 26th, the day of its return to the Paris Labor Exchange.

Less than on September 10, the social partners are therefore counting on other mobilizations of their own, between now and the presentation of the draft finance bill for 2026. The Minister for Labor , Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, is also opening, in parallel, a series of consultations starting this Monday, August 25, the day when François Bayrou could clarify some of his proposals made on July 15. Going back on the announced elimination of two public holidays? "These two days are the tree that hides the forest of civil service job cuts , unemployment reform and even the precariousness of retirees," argues Julien Troccaz of SUD rail, who, like all the social partners consulted by Libération , does not expect "any progress" from this back-to-school press conference. "No one is fooled," continues Stanislas Gaudon (CFE-CGC). "We know the strategy of introducing a bunch of measures to withdraw one or two and calm things down," said Denis Gravouil of the CGT. While the call for a blockade in mid-September is making waves, "this date will not be the only event of the new school year," he announced. "The inter-union will protest against this austerity policy."