No, Mr Fries, a strike is not blackmail Impoverishment is not a business strategy

Our colleagues in Turkey have begun an open-ended strike today to recover their staggering loss of purchasing power. SUD expresses its wholehearted solidarity with their effort. Going on strike is never an easy step to take. It is the ultimate measure for workers to obtain improvements in their remuneration and/or work conditions after having failed at the negotiating table.

It is not “blackmail”, as our CEO insisted at last Friday’s monthly meeting with staff representatives.

“...we have no intention of raising our offer – particularly in the face of a form of blackmail linked to the coverage of an international event,” Fries told the CSE when questioned by SUD about the impending strike ahead of the July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara.

As our Turkish colleagues have explained, the right to strike in Turkey is contingent on the failure of negotiations. Wage talks have failed and their strike is legal. We’re in the news business. Bemoaning the fact that a strike coincides with a major news event is, in our opinion, beneath AFP’s management.

It is also cynical. It paints workers fighting to recover lost purchasing power as disloyal employees willing to harm AFP for personal gain. That caricature is unacceptable.

Management clearly bears far more responsibility for the current situation and, in SUD’s opinion, has not been loyal to staff in Turkey or elsewhere in the network.

Fries told French staff representatives that wages in Turkey had risen 251% since 2020, clearly aiming to give the impression that AFP treated staff there well. Our Turkish colleagues do not dispute the figure, but point out that, according to the Turkish central bank’s official inflation calculator, prices have risen by more than 800% over the same period.

Blackmail, you say?

“As you know, at AFP, we never – or very rarely – fully compensate for inflation, because we lack the means to do so,” Fries told French staff representatives last week.

AFP’s lack of resources is not an immutable fact. It is also the result of strategic choices made by management regarding funding priorities and negotiations with the French state on our five-year funding plan. It finds the money for its expensive projects, spending millions in extra funds to move staff from a safe and relatively low-cost city to places that are unsafe, undemocratic and expensive.

Fries noted that staff in many parts of the world have suffered erosion in their purchasing power. Indeed. Staff across the network are feeling it. It has become so manifest that it appears to be a strategic decision: maintaining AFP’s global coverage on the back of declining real wages.

“I repeat: we cannot systematically offset all inflation otherwise we would have to adjust staffing levels…”

How is this not blackmail, Mr Fries?

Our Turkish colleagues deserve better than lectures on loyalty. They, as well as staff throughout AFP, deserve to have their purchasing power – and their dignity – restored after having what amounts to a pay cut foisted upon them. We must not fall for management’s spin or give in to its threats. Our Turkish colleagues deserve our full support.

Impoverishment is not a business strategy.

Paris, July 6, 2026

SUD-AFP (Solidarity-Unity-Democracy)