{"id":395777,"date":"2019-02-10T16:41:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T15:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-cgts-national-strike-french-unions-seek-to-strangle-the-yellow-vest-protests\/"},"modified":"2019-02-10T16:41:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T15:41:21","slug":"the-cgts-national-strike-french-unions-seek-to-strangle-the-yellow-vest-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-cgts-national-strike-french-unions-seek-to-strangle-the-yellow-vest-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"The CGT\u2019s \u201cnational strike\u201d: French unions seek to strangle the \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>The CGT\u2019s \u201cnational strike\u201d: French unions seek to strangle the \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    our reporters<br \/>\n    <br \/>9 February 2019<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>On February 5, the CGT trade union federation called a \u201cnational 24-hour strike\u201d and joint day of action with \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests. Tens of thousands of people participated across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The day of action had a contradictory character. On the one hand, the unions were not seeking to mobilize workers against Macron or the European Union. In workplaces where they had a presence, they did nothing to mobilize workers for a strike. It was, for the union apparatus, an opportunity to mobilize its base of officials and bureaucrats to meet with \u201cyellow vest\u201d protesters, toward whom the unions are hostile, and seek to take control of their movement.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of people nonetheless rallied in numerous cities: Lille (2,300 according to police), Rouen (3,200), Le Havre, (2,200), Caen (2,300), Nantes (2,400), Angers (1,500), Clermont-Ferrand (2,300), Strasbourg (1,500), Lyon (4,300), Avignon (2,000), Marseille (5,200), and Paris (18,000). Workers joined \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests on roundabouts and roadblocks throughout France.<\/p>\n<p>In Paris, the head of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, as well as Unsubmissive France\u2019s (UF) Jean-luc Melenchon and Alexis Corbi\u00e8re, attended the rally. The union apparatuses and their political allies hoped that all would be forgotten of their earlier denunciations of the \u201cyellow vest\u201d movement as right-wing and neo-fascist when it began. Corbi\u00e8re declared it was \u201clogical that the unions be there with the yellow vests to tell the government: stop these policies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While reaffirming the pretexts for his initial denunciation of the \u201cyellow vests,\u201d Martinez couched them in more subtle terms: \u201cWe do not mix&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2019\/02\/09\/fran-f09-1.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The CGT\u2019s \u201cnational strike\u201d: French unions seek to strangle the \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests By our reporters 9 February 2019 On February 5, the CGT trade union federation called a \u201cnational 24-hour strike\u201d and joint day of action with \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests. Tens of thousands of people participated across the country. The day of action [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-395777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}