September 10th Movement: CGT and Solidaires support the mobilization; CFDT will not "join" it

As the Block Everything movement, scheduled for Wednesday, September 10, approaches, trade unions are beginning to position themselves for this event launched on social media. In a press release issued Wednesday, August 27, the CGT (General Confederation of Trade Unions) hopes that the September 10 movement will be "a successful first step" and calls for "building the strike wherever possible." This announcement comes after a national committee meeting held on Tuesday and Wednesday.

While an inter-union meeting is due to be held on Friday to discuss the government's budgetary plans, the CGT has announced that it will propose "calling for a united inter-professional day of strike action and demonstrations in September."

Although several federations (chemicals, commerce and services) and departmental unions of the CGT called for demonstrations on September 10, the organization's general secretary, Sophie Binet, was cautious on Friday, faced with a "nebulous" movement with a risk of "infiltration by the extreme right."

Earlier on Wednesday, the Solidaires trade union also called for a strike and support for the September 10 movement. Solidaires said the movement "expresses the multifaceted and growing social anger at the Bayrou government's budgetary announcements."

The "desperate attempt by François Bayrou" , who will request a vote of confidence in the National Assembly on September 8 , "only strengthens our determination to fight the unfair budget project" , according to the press release. Solidaires, which wants to "build a social movement" in order to "establish a different sharing of wealth" , will be part of "the construction of a balance of power through the inter-union strike on Friday, August 29" .

On the contrary, the CFDT, through its general secretary, Marylise Léon, has decided to stay away from this movement. "The preferred modes of action are not ours. Blocking everything, disobedience, that is not the CFDT method. And the union does not respond to the injunctions of political parties," she explained in an interview with Le Monde , while the leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, urged the unions to call for a general strike on September 10 .

FO general secretary Frédéric Souillot told AFP that his organisation would establish its position within the inter-union movement, while indicating that he was keeping "a distance" from a movement in which certain groups reject "representative trade union organisations" .