For the "Yellow Jackets" and Against Climate Change!

Saturday December 8th: Everyone in the Streets!

• "The rage expressed by the #GiletsJaunes (yellow jacket protesters) is fully justified. There is a deep feeling of social, fiscal and environmental injustice in this country!" - From a Vidéo by Attac-France (French only)
• The French Unions Must Hold their Ground: Statement by the Solidaires trade union grouping (see below)
• Call to take part in marches for climate justice: (French only)

"Solidaires" Trade Union Grouping, France

Statement issued in Paris on December 6th, 2018

The French Unions Must Hold their Ground, Fight for Social and Climate Justice

(Translation into English proposed informally by the SUD-AFP union)

The Solidaires grouping has not signed the appeal published by all the other French trade union confederations following a joint meeting held this morning.
For Solidaires, it is impossible to:

• Decide that the most urgent thing to do is nothing
• Get involved in talks proposed by the government, to be held on its terms
• Condemn no other "forms of violence" than those committed "in the expression of popular demands".

Today’s joint union statement is disconnected from the situation on the ground.

The anger that the "yellow jackets" (gilets jaunes) have been expressing for several weeks now, and the meagre concessions announced in response cannot simply be transformed into "negotiations" of the sort desired by the government. The anger is such that it can no longer be channelled into business as usual.
We have suggested to the other unions that we should work together to quickly organise a one-day general strike to pile on the pressure and win wage increases and improved labour rights. Our proposal has been ignored.

Any union position which makes no mention of the violence inflicted on demonstrators over the past several years, and even more dramatically in recent weeks, is inconceivable for Solidaires.

Within the trade union movement we express, and will continue to express, the voices of all those who see it as essential to work for convergence between the struggles of school and college students, pensioners, insecure workers, the unemployed and everyone fighting for social and environmental justice. We call for a joining-up of the struggles against climate change and for social rights via the street protests planned for Saturday, December 8th. We also call for stepped-up mobilisation in sectors where struggles are already underway, notably via strikes, and we stand by women and men everywhere who demand social justice. Our joint organisation will make its trade union structures available wherever deemed necessary.

External links (French only)

• The original version on the Solidaires website.
• The statement issued by the other main French union groupings

December 6, 2018