Labour / Le Travail
Issue 95 (2025)

From Other Shores / Des nouvelles venues d’ailleurs

French Trade Unions Put to the Test by the Political Crisis

Karel Yon, Université Paris Nanterre (cnrs)

This address was given at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies at L’Université du Québec à Montréal on 19 June 2024.

I am both very honoured and intimidated to deliver this lecture, which I had originally planned to focus on the movement against French pension reform last year. My plan was to address this crisis in a broader sequence of political conflict of which the “yellow vests” uprising in 2018–19 was another highlight.¹ But current social and political events have led me to partly revise the content of my talk.

As you are certainly aware, the president of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has decided, to everyone’s surprise, to dissolve the National Assembly. He took this decision on 9 June 2024, on the evening that results of the European elections were made public. In these elections, Macron’s party received less than 15 per cent of the vote, compared with more than double that for the Rassemblement national (rn), putting the far right in the lead with 31.4 per cent of the vote. Clearly, by deciding to call a general election at a time when the balance of power was most favourable to the far right, Macron created the conditions that could precipitate the far right’s rise to power. This is why his decision opened a political crisis with multiple consequences, including a sudden redefinition of the relationship between most French trade unions and left-wing political parties.

On 10 June 2024, the Confédération Générale du Travail (cgt) issued a press release entitled “Face à l’extrême droite, le front populaire!”² This phrase echoed comments made the previous day by radical left-wing MP François Ruffin, who had mobilized the historical reference to the coalition of the left and the labour movement formed in 1936 to block fascism. Ruffin’s purpose in echoing these historical rallying cries was to ward off the divisions that had been exacerbated between left-wing parties during the European campaign. In its press release, the cgt expressed its “anger” and stated,

Drawing on its history, the cgt is taking all its responsibilities to prevent workers from once again being locked into a false alternative between the far right and neoliberalism…. To prevent the catastrophe organized by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen from happening, the unity of the left is indispensable.

On the same day, the eight trade union organizations that had kept alive the united alliance (intersyndicale) formed in the movement against pension reform of the previous year met to discuss the latest unemployment insurance reform undertaken by the government. Their meeting, while confirming their unanimous opposition to this reform, resulted in a communiqué signed by five of the eight central organizations: the cgt, Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (cfdt), Union Nationale des Syndicats Autonomes (unsa), Union Syndicale Solidaires, and Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (fsu). Entitled “After the shock of the European elections, social demands must be heard,” the communiqué called for a “democratic and social awakening.” It further called on the government to abandon current reforms, starting with unemployment insurance, and called for major demonstrations against the extreme right on the weekend of 15 and 16 June.

Above all, the joint statement listed nine themes designed to “respond to the social and environmental emergency and to the aspirations of workers.” These themes included wage and pension increases, the repeal of pension and unemployment insurance reforms, the defence and redeployment of public services, the taxation of super-profits, equal pay for men and women, the regularization of undocumented workers, and the re-localization and ecological transformation of industry. Without explicitly taking a stand in favour of this new popular front in the making, the intersyndicale thus placed itself, de facto, in a position to contribute, both programmatically and militantly, to the unity of the left. This call was then followed by sectoral declinations, with journalists’ unions, the main railway federations, and the education intersyndicale calling for mobilization in the streets and at the ballot box against the extreme right.

Against all expectations, starting with those of the president of the Republic, the left-wing forces succeeded in agreeing on a program that enabled them to present single candidates in the legislative elections on 30 June. Many political leaders insisted that this new popular front would need the contribution of all the driving forces of society, starting with the trade unions. On 17 June 2024, cgt general secretary Sophie Binet responded to this call by taking part in a meeting to launch the coalition. The following day, the cgt parliament decided by a large majority to call for a vote in favour of the New Popular Front. The fsu, the leading education union, followed suit.

Some Paradoxes of French-Style Trade Unionism

Such practices might seem relatively ordinary from a North American perspective, where political action is part of the regular repertoire of collective action by trade unions. They might even seem all the more banal given that French trade unionism has a reputation for being much more “political” or “radical” than its counterpart across the Atlantic. In reality, these events testify to a realignment of political and union agendas that was not evident in the immediate past. In fact, over the last 30 years, French unions made it a point of honour not to support a political party. But before returning to this point, it seems important to clarify how French trade unionism can nevertheless seem, from abroad, far more political.

It is true that in France, joining a union differs profoundly from the system of unionization in Canada or the United States. Union membership is first and foremost a voluntary commitment. It is rare to expect anything in return for joining a union other than trouble, since union involvement exposes you to all forms of discrimination, particularly wage discrimination. In France, the benefits of collective agreements negotiated by trade unions do not depend on membership of an organization because they are guaranteed by the state. These agreements can be negotiated at a company or sector level, and large-scale national negotiations are sometimes held for all private-sector employees. As a result, the low rate of unionization – around 10 per cent of the workforce – is an indication not of poor contractual coverage (which in fact exceeds 90 per cent), but rather of the proportion of workers who have taken the conscious step of actually joining a union.

Another feature of French trade unionism is its pluralism, which extends right down to the company level. Throughout France, several organizations can compete for employees’ votes in workplace elections. These elections are supposed to be held every four years in all companies with more than eleven employees. Analogies between the partisan and trade union worlds can thus be drawn all the more easily, as trade union pluralism is historically explained by political and ideological divergences, with some central organizations marked by socialist and communist traditions, others by Catholicism and the self-management spirit of the 1970s. More recently, there has been a tendency to distinguish between two major orientations in the trade union movement: on the one hand, a so-called reformist current, led by the cfdt, emphasizing social dialogue on neoliberal policies to mitigate their effects; on the other, a so-called protest stream, claiming to be anti-capitalist and emphasizing resistance through demonstrations and strikes, to attacks on labour law, and social protection. However, on the shop floor, trade union pluralism is an expression less of political nuances than of the differentiated presence of each organization in different segments of the working world.

The militant aspect of French trade unionism is all the more central as the service dimension is very limited because access to social protection does not depend on union membership. In fact, it is directly linked to salary status: while trade unions participate in the management of social security organizations in the fields of health insurance, unemployment, and retirement, these are financed by compulsory contributions deducted from salaries or, increasingly, by taxation. Conversely, the protest dimensions of union action are more visible in the country, as strikes are not subordinated to collective bargaining. It is possible to strike at any time and on any issue, as solidarity strikes or so-called political strikes are not prohibited. Like unionization, strike action is voluntary and thus is perceived as an individual right that is exercised collectively.

Between a Retreat into the Sphere of Industrial Relations and the Politicization of Union Action

Despite all these features, which give a more militant and, a priori, more political character to French trade unionism, trade union positions in favour of the New Popular Front, far from being self-evident, were hotly debated, and some unions remained on the sidelines. Three central organizations – Force Ouvrière (fo), Confédération Française de l’Encadrement–Confédération Générale des Cadres (cfe-cgc), and Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (cftc) – refused to sign the inter-union declaration, deeming it “too political,” taking the view that a trade union should not issue any voting instructions to its members. The cfdt, which is on a par with the cgt in terms of membership and has overtaken it in recent years in terms of electoral representativeness, did sign the inter-union declaration, but its leaders did not wish to go beyond a call to mobilize against the extreme right.

By inviting trade unions to become involved in the New Popular Front, and by responding to this call with a more or less assertive trade union involvement in this political process, not only through public statements but also through militant mobilization on the ground, union leaders contributed to politicizing trade union action. In this sense, the unions were acting in a manner described by political scientist Jacques Lagroye (1936–2009).

Lagroye is considered one of the founding fathers of critical political sociology in France. His way of doing political science research was rooted in history, sociology, and anthropology, and his fundamental research interests were to understand the role of institutions in legitimizing the social order. In a 2003 text, he defines politicization as “the requalification of the most diverse social activities, a requalification that results from a practical agreement between social agents inclined, for multiple reasons, to transgress or question the differentiation of spaces of activity.”³ In this case, politicizing the union struggle meant recognizing that the conditions of union activity are not indifferent to what is played out on the terrain of electoral politics, and that the union and partisan fields are not hermetically sealed from each other. So, behind the refusal of politicization expressed by certain trade unionists, there was more than just a legitimate concern to prevent union subordination to political parties. More fundamentally, there was the idea that union activity could stand on its own, that it exists in an autonomous social sphere of social democracy (démocratie sociale), which has its own logic, practices, and protagonists, and its own specific institutions.

To elaborate on this point, it is necessary to return in greater detail to this process of autonomization of “démocratie sociale,” an expression commonly used in France to describe the system of industrial relations. I have studied this process from a variety of angles, from my dissertation on fo activists’ relationship with politics to later work on the reform of union representation rules, the competing uses of the term “démocratie sociale,” and the training of trade unionists. I shall limit myself here to underlining the specificity of an analytical approach that I, alongside other colleagues, have termed the “political sociology of trade unionism.”⁴ This conceptualization enables us to articulate a comprehensive analysis, starting from the trade unionists’ understanding of their own practices, and a critical viewpoint, attentive to the way in which trade unionism and industrial relations are constitutive of a broader social, economic, and political order.

Many commentators have analyzed the autonomization of the sphere of industrial relations as a “normalization” of French-style trade unionism, by distancing it from Marxism and reducing the influence of the cgt. Other researchers have analyzed this process as necessarily resulting from the institutionalization of trade unionism and industrial relations to the point of assimilating contemporary trade unionism to the form of a “party-cartel,” depicting it as a semi-public institution totally dependent on state resources.⁵

Such a conception is not very different from what Chris Howell defines as “virtual unionism” to describe French trade unionism.⁶ While I respect Howell’s work, I find this notion problematic for two reasons. First, it tends to exaggerate the evanescence of trade union organizations, both in the sphere of industrial relations and in that of social movements. It is based on the idea that unions exist only insofar as they are instrumentalized by the state, and that social conflict is the direct result of the contradictions between labour and capital, ignoring all the militant work required to build protest.⁷ The second problem is that the idea of virtual unionism implies, by contrast, a certain idea of a supposedly “real” unionism. This corresponds to the model of “compulsory” or “coercive” unionism, as the Anglo-Saxon discipline of industrial relations has theorized it at the crossroads of law and economics.⁸ According to this vision, unionism is first and foremost a cartel of work, and its power depends on the size of its membership, the latter being an indicator of the union’s ability to control the “labour supply” in the tug-of-war with the employer. Such an analysis is underpinned by both formal and static conceptions of power and representation.

Drawing on the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, political sociology takes a different approach to union representation, analyzing it as the unstable outcome of a dialectical relationship between workers and the organizations claiming to speak on their behalf. In this logic, representation is a relational and processual phenomenon, rather than a substantial and formal one. It is conceived not in legal terms, in the logic of a mandate implying a necessary relationship between the representative and the represented, but rather in political and sociological terms, as the performative act of speaking on behalf of a group, through which that group and its interests are made visible and mobilized.⁹

Rather than reducing trade unionism to a specific form of organization, political sociology understands it as a set of social relations and institutionalized practices, which implies that the very definition of trade unionism is in flux and remains a constant battleground. Until the 1970s in France, it was taken for granted that trade unionism was part and parcel of a broader movement driven by the notion of a militant working class seeking emancipation. Yet, by the 1980s and 1990s, there was a shift that witnessed the emergence of the idea that trade union activity within the framework of industrial relations could henceforth constitute an end in itself, that it came under the umbrella of “démocratie sociale” conceived as a sphere distinct from, and subordinate to, the sphere of political democracy.

This is where political sociology differs (slightly) from critical political economy. While I share the idea that “the separation between the ‘economic’ and ‘political’ spheres is irrelevant”¹⁰ from a critical perspective, this separation nevertheless is highlighted in my research work, insofar as it makes sense for the actors and therefore serves to orient their conduct from a comprehensive point of view.

This means that struggles on a symbolic and political level must be considered with equal importance to struggles on a social and economic level. The political crisis precipitated by the dissolution of the French National Assembly has clearly shown this. It has shaken common perceptions of the sphere of industrial relations, casting a harsh light on the illusory nature of its autonomy. With the risk of the rn coming to power, an existential threat now hangs over the unions, as the far right has never concealed its hostility to them. The only measure in the rn’s program concerning trade unions is to call into question the current rules of representativeness, deemed too favourable to established organizations. The far right’s stated intention is to put an end to what it calls “union privilege” and to encourage the growth of autonomous worker organizations. This would exacerbate the fragmentation of workers’ representation and make it easier for employers to take control.

It may come as a surprise that some unions continued to assert their distance from politics in this exceptional context. There are two possible explanations. The first is based on the theory of political crises developed by political scientist Michel Dobry.¹¹ He refers to political crises as “fluid conjunctures” marked by great uncertainty. In such a context, maintaining routinized practices can be like trying to maintain a form of normalcy, whatever the cost. He calls this inertia of routines “regression toward habitus,” which, in critical situations, hinders adjustment to new situations.¹² A second, more pragmatic hypothesis seems just as important: The depoliticization induced by the retreat of trade unionism into the sphere of industrial relations has led to a decline in the political education (socialization) of union activists and a diversification in the political attitudes of union members. While union membership tends to protect against voting for the extreme right, the fact remains that this vote has nonetheless flourished and is strongest in organizations such as fo and cftc, which are the most reluctant to politicize their practices. Refusing to engage in electoral politics is a way for unions to preserve their internal diversity, in a context where membership is already thin.

The Pensions Movement of 2023: The First Awakening of Political Unionism

That said, the questioning of the presumed autonomy of the sphere of industrial relations is not just the sudden product of the political crisis. Already, the movement against pension reform in 2023 had helped to undermine this evidence.¹³ I will begin by recalling a few facts about this movement before showing how it was able to destabilize the common sense of a self-sufficient “démocratie sociale.”

The pensions movement spanned the first half of 2023. For the moment, we do not have a precise picture of strikes in 2023, as the data produced by public statistics (dares) takes time. But it is safe to say that the impression left by the movement in various sectors is that it has confirmed the strong trend toward a decline in striker conflictuality.¹⁴ Despite its limitations, the measurement of individual days not worked (journées individuelles non travaillées [jints]) in the private sector gives us an idea of this decline: from 4,000 jints per 1,000 employees in 1976 to 800 in 1995 – a number divided by 5 in twenty years. In 2010, the dares counted just 320 jints per 1,000 employees, and 160 in 2019 – both years that were marked by previous major pension movements. In the more routine context of 2022, the last year for which we have figures, and despite the upsurge in conflictuality linked to inflation, it was only 99 jints per 1,000 employees. Striking is a costly activity, not only for those who miss out on wages, but also for the workers who organize it and the unions that need to mobilize resources that are becoming increasingly scarce.

Above all, it was the scale of the demonstrations that attracted attention, with figures on a par with those measured during the 2010 movement.¹⁵ The latter remains the best point of comparison, as it also contested the extension of the retirement age (from 60 to 62) and was based on a unitary union configuration. It extended over several months, with fourteen days of action between March and June and then from September to November 2010. Based on police figures, in 2023 the protest was punctuated by fourteen days of action between 19 January and 6 June, seven of which exceeded 750,000 participants and four passing the million mark (compared with three days in 2010). With an estimated 1.28 million participants, according to the police, 31 January 2023 was the biggest demonstration of the last thirty years.¹⁶

But the main originality of the 2023 sequence was its territorial roots, with hundreds of rallies organized in rural communes and medium-sized towns, where sometimes the equivalent of half the inhabitants were on the streets in small towns and villages. While the geography of protest was not entirely identical to that of the yellow vests,¹⁷ it nevertheless echoed that movement, like a new revelation of the depth of social anger. By bringing together diverse fractions of the working classes in a single movement, the unions succeeded in making themselves the voice, if not the “party,” of a working world that is represented less and less in politics. While the movement was initially built around a single slogan – the rejection of retirement at 64 – it crystallized a much broader social and democratic revolt.

As a broader social revolt beyond the single issue of pensions, the movement gave shape to a latent anger fuelled by a degradation of work that had become unacceptable to millions of workers. While “essential workers” had been celebrated during the covid-19 health crisis, it was these same workers – and above all, female workers in the care and retail sectors – who found themselves most directly affected by the two-year extension of working life. In this respect, the distribution of mobilizations across the country can be analyzed as a symptom of this anger in response to the degradation of work. Indeed, it is in small and medium-sized towns that low-wage blue-collar and white-collar workers are overrepresented, whether in the industrial sector or in personal services. These are areas where work is all the more arduous because the public services that are supposed to make daily life easier – including schools, hospitals, post offices, and public transport – are the most rundown.

As a democratic revolt, the movement also expressed, if not reinforced, the rejection of the political elites who continue to implement the neoliberal agenda through policies of austerity, privatization of public services, and relentless reforms of labour law and social protection, despite the massive protests that have been held since the mid-1990s.¹⁸ In this respect, while Macron’s re-election seemed to belie the tendency to systematically punish outgoing governments, we must not forget that it was made possible by the duel that once again pitted him against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, thereby reinforcing the democratic resentment of citizens who had once again resolved to vote against the far right in 2022. This is the same “coup” that Macron tried to reproduce with the dissolution of the assembly in 2024.

This double dimension – social and democratic – of the 2023 movement must be emphasized, as it enables us to understand the diverse forms taken by the mobilization over time, and particularly the transition from social crisis to political crisis. The transition was precipitated by the use of the institutional mechanisms of the Fifth Republic to force the adoption of the reform without having to pass it through Parliament (Article 49-3 of the Constitution) in the absence of a guaranteed majority. It was also provoked by the intensification of repression against the mobilized sectors.

The first sequence, from mid-January to mid-March 2023, was characterized by the fact that trade unionism, embodied above all by the intersyndicale, alone set the pace and shape of mobilization. The central issue, if not the only issue, was social: work. But the labour movement failed to generalize the strike in early March 2023, and the government remained intransigent, with mobilizations subjected to violent repression. This was particularly the case in the rare sectors where the strike had managed to take root and gain visibility, such as the petrochemical and waste industries, where the strike’s momentum and visibility were broken by requisitions.

In mid-March, following the announcement of the use of Article 49-3 of the Constitution, a second phase began. The social movement developed in a more autonomous way, marked by the denunciation of the regime’s authoritarian course and the multiplication of more radical modes of action, occupying the space left vacant by less frequent union marches. During this period of more direct confrontation with political power, the student youth became more mobilized, even if we did not see the outpouring of support the unions had hoped for. In several major cities, “wildcat” night demonstrations were held on a daily basis for several weeks, drawing on the organized spontaneity of social networks. Everywhere, members of the government were greeted by “casserolades.” Similarly, clashes with the police and the repression of protests reached a heightened level.

For all these reasons, it can be said that the 2023 movement expressed much more than a rejection of the postponement of the retirement age. Rather, it was a rejection of “Macron and his world,” to use an expression inspired by the Nuit debout movement of 2016, which was the French equivalent of the “occupy” and “indignados” protests and prefigured the yellow vests uprising. In this instance, however, the unions succeeded in making themselves the central voice in the revolt. In this respect, the pensions movement of 2023 already signalled the exhaustion of a union practice confined to the sphere of institutionalized industrial relations. First of all, it signalled the failure of the reformist line, since it saw the entire trade union movement take to the streets, with the formation of an intersyndicale made up of the eight major trade union confederations. The cfdt and its allies’ line of social accompaniment of reforms via social dialogue has been exhausted. Since 2017, Macron has preferred to legislate by ordinance in the field of labour. He has challenged the legitimacy of the trade unions and employer organizations to manage social protection by imposing his directives on health insurance, unemployment insurance, and of course, pensions. Macron has said it several times: The place of trade unions is in the workplace, not elsewhere, and even within companies, their place must be diminished. The 2017 ordinances reforming labour law applicable in the private sector reduced the means of employee representatives and extended the possibilities of social dialogue without unions. Together with a 2019 law concerning the civil service, Macron has structurally reduced the power of trade unions in the workplace, particularly in the field of occupational health; local representation; and career support in the public sector. Government intransigence encourages management intransigence, and the so-called “reformist” unions find themselves short of an interlocutor. Hence the hardening of their line, reflected in the choice of unitary mobilization and unfailing involvement in the intersyndicale, to the point of adopting a slogan for a general strike, when the intersyndicale called for “bringing France to a standstill” on 7 March 2023.

But the pensions movement also highlights the limits of the protest line. In fact, despite six months of high-intensity mobilizations – organizing that elevated trade unionism to the rank of the leading political force in opposition to Macronism – the movement failed. In my view, this reveals a twofold limitation of French trade unionism today. The first has to do with a certain belief in “social dialogue,” which assumes that a state concerned with the general interest would listen to trade union organizations, or at least go along with them if they raised their voices. This approach no longer corresponds to the reality of an increasingly authoritarian neoliberalism. The second limitation lies in the fact that all those who would have liked to go further, to go beyond spaced-out days of action, to generalize strikes and make them permanent, have not been able to find the means to implement their policy. Of course, repression has played its part to the full, but the fact remains that the trade union movement’s capacity to strike has deteriorated profoundly over the last few decades. This is the result of social, economic, and legal transformations that have undermined work collectives and weakened unions.

In this respect, the movement revealed the contradictions of modern French trade unionism, reminding us of both its centrality and its fragility. The ability to mobilize is still strong, but it is forced onto the defensive: over several decades, the power of trade unions in France has enabled them to slow down neoliberal reforms but not to stop them or to reverse the trend. While trade unionism retains a capacity to speak on behalf of workers, whole swathes of the working world are not unionized and therefore have little direct involvement in the unions. Lastly, the unions’ ability to mobilize seems to gain in importance in the public arena only to the extent that their strength is diminishing in the workplace.

Two Strategic Challenges for Trade Unions

In Le syndicalisme est politique,¹⁹ I emphasized two challenges facing the trade union movement in France.

First, trade unionism is still lacking an organizational strategy that will enable it to redeploy. Trade unionism needs to reorganize its forces, to develop unionization designed to regain power. This means taking seriously the tasks of organizing, building, and leading militant collectives. This is what I call “reproductive militant work” in my current research, which provides the essential basis for conflict and negotiation work.

This political work is more important now given that the contemporary trade union reality is largely mediated by the institutions of industrial relations. The result is a fragmentation of wage consciousness, linked to the strengthening of workplace corporatism, and is due to the increased decentralization of collective bargaining and the concentration of union representation in large companies. The dependence of trade union organizations on the institutional resources of the industrial relations system sheds light on their difficulties in developing their presence in those fractions of the working world most exposed to exploitation: small businesses; precarious sectors where union rights are fragile; intermittent workers; workers in the informal economy where immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, are concentrated. It is only by positing class as a strategic postulate that we can conceive and justify a policy of resource allocation that enables us to develop unionization in these sectors.²⁰ This presupposes the existence of organizational mechanisms ensuring forms of solidarity across industries (i.e. the pooling and transfer of resources, but also the production of a shared sense of understanding and a collective identity, notably through union training).

Theorizing class as a strategic postulate also means recognizing the existence of forms of mobilization, organization, and representation of work outside the unions. I am thinking here of groups of managers and engineers who question the environmental footprint of the large companies in which they work, as well as feminist, antiracist, and lgbtq+ mobilizations that take on and make visible specific oppressions that also determine specific experiences of work. To build an inclusive and up-to-date representation of the working class, trade unions need to be open and attentive to collectives and mobilizations that, without necessarily taking on the legal form of a trade union, nonetheless contribute to politicizing the relationship to work and shaping class experiences.

Such processes are by no means anecdotal. Environmental issues, feminism, antiracism, and lgbtq+ struggles are not “societal” extras for a trade unionism whose core business is class action. What is at stake is both taking charge of these issues within the unions and building alliances with the many groups, including in the world of work, that are involved in these areas. Trade unions have an essential role to play in deciphering the mechanisms of oppression and domination at work and in showing how inequalities and injustices based on gender, race, or age are consubstantial with class relations. In this way, trade unions would once again function as agents of social politicization, capable of going against the evidence of common sense, denaturalizing the order of things, and pointing out the social interests privileged by existing arrangements.

This broadening of the representation of work goes hand in hand with a necessary questioning of the ways in which people strike today and of what constitutes a “strategic” or “blocking” sector, beyond the “industrial bastions” that produced homogeneous, close-knit work collectives and made industrial unionism so powerful in the 20th century. Many activities that are now outsourced, particularly in corporate and community services (IT, cleaning, security, etc.), can have blocking effects if they are suspended. Likewise, thinking about flow blockages implies thinking not only about material flows but also about the intangible flows that are essential to the smooth running of companies, administrations, and the capitalist economy (logistics, especially last-mile logistics, data centres, etc.). Finally, in French society, where industrial production now accounts for just 13 per cent of the workforce, thinking about a strategy to fight for the majority means giving a central place to the reproductive sectors (education, health, social and medico-social services, household services, accommodation, and catering), which account for almost 30 per cent of employees – and almost one in two women in employment (45.4 per cent).

But trade unions also need a political strategy. We are no longer in a period when the pressure of social movements is exerted on and within a state that arbitrates the confrontation between the interests of capital and labour, and where public power thus sets limits on the market. The priorities of public action are now – as is the hallmark of neoliberalism – to reinforce market logic, cut public spending, and reduce the cost of labour. This structurally undermines the power of trade unions, in the sense that their demands appear to be incompatible with the orientations enshrined in the ordinary workings of political institutions.²¹ Only direct intervention in the political terrain – both the institutions and the actors embodying them – can enable the trade union movement to regain the structural power it has been deprived of.

The sudden acceleration of history brought about by the dissolution of the National Assembly has brought this issue of political strategy to the forefront, an issue that had been completely inaudible just a few weeks earlier. This will be a key issue for French trade unions in the period ahead, whatever the outcome of the legislative elections: If the left wins, the trade union movement will need to be able to bring its weight to bear in order to initiate the necessary structural reforms, without compromising its independence; if it is the far right, unions will have to avoid falling into the trap of a policy that will probably be less a direct attack on trade unionism per se than an attempt to resume the course of depoliticization, by reducing trade unionism to its position as a subordinate player confined to the workplace and deepening its fragmentation at this level. If there is no clear majority, it will be a matter of successfully acting as both a force of initiative and resistance, in liaison with allied parliamentarians, to tilt the political agenda in the right direction. Whatever the situation, the trade union movement will need to think strategically about its actions, breaking with the tactical confinement to which it has become accustomed through the rhetoric of “démocratie sociale.”

1. 1. For an analysis of the 2016–18 sequence, see Karel Yon, “Holding Its Own: Labour among Social Movements in France,” in Stefan Schmalz and Brandon Sommer, eds., Confronting Crisis and Precariousness: Organized Labour and Social Unrest in the European Union (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), 73–91.

2. 2. Against the far right, the people’s front!

3. 3. Jacques Lagroye, “Les processus de politisation,” in Lagroye, ed., La politisation (Paris: Belin, 2003), 360–361.

4. 4. Baptiste Giraud, Karel Yon, Sophie Béroud, Sociologie politique du syndicalisme (Paris: Armand Colin, 2018).

5. 5. Pierre Rosanvallon, La question syndicale (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1988); Dominique Andolfatto and Dominique Labbé, “La transformation des syndicats français: Vers un nouveau ‘modèle social’?,” Revue française de science politique 56, 2 (2006): 281–297.

6. 6. Chris Howell, “Virtual Unionism in France,” in Harrick Chapman, Mark Kesselman, and Martin A. Schain, eds., A Century of Organized Labor in France (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998).

7. 7. John Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).

8. 8. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1971; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

9. 9. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

10. 10. Thomas Collombat et Xavier Lafrance, “Recomposition de la gauche québecoise et rôle politique du syndicalisme,” Recherches sociographiques 63, 1–2 (2022): 133.

11. 11. Michel Dobry, Sociologie des crises politiques (Paris: Presses de la fnsp, 1986).

12. 12. I previously had the occasion to apply this analysis to fo’s attitude when the united left came to power in 1981; see Karel Yon, “Changement politique et changement syndical: effets et usages de 1981 dans le monde de pensée de la cgt-Force Ouvrière,” in Philippe Aldrin, Lucie Bargel, Nicolas Bué, and Christine Pina, eds., Politiques de l’alternance: Sociologie des changements (de) politiques (Bellecombes-en-Bauges: Éditions du Croquant, 2016).

13. 13. Pierre Rouxel and Karel Yon, “From Pension Reform to Regime Crisis: The Social Movement of 2023 in France,” Global Labour Journal 14, 2 (2023): 185–188.

14. 14. Pierre Blavier, Tristan Haute, and Étienne Pénissat, “Du vote professionnel à la grève,” Revue française de science politique 70, 3 (2020): 443–467.

15. 15. Sophie Béroud and Karel Yon, “Face à la crise, la mobilisation sociale et ses limites: Une analyse des contradictions syndicales,” Modern and Contemporary France 20 (2012): 169–183.

16. 16. According to police figures, in 1995, only one demonstration reached the million-person mark; there was also one in 2003, two in 2006, four in 2010, and none in 2016 or 2019. Metropolitan France has a population of 66 million, including 30 million working people.

17. 17. The biggest day of the yellow vests uprising was the first, on 17 November 2018, with around 300,000 people mobilized at over 2,000 sites.

18. 18. Bruno Amable, Structural Crisis and Institutional Change in Modern Capitalism: French Capitalism in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

19. 19. Karel Yon, ed., Le syndicalisme est politique: questions stratégiques pour un renouveau syndical (Paris: La Dispute, 2024).

20. 20. Karel Yon, “Les syndicats ne sont-ils bons qu’à résister?,” Mouvements, 28 August 2024, https://mouvements.info/les-syndicats-ne-sont-ils-bons-qua-resister/.

21. 21. Lucio Baccaro and Chris Howell, Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations since the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

1. 1. Pour une analyse de la séquence 2016-2018, voir K. Yon, « Holding its own: Labour among social movements in France, » dans S. Schmalz, B. Sommer, dir., Confronting Crisis and Precariousness: Organized Labour and Social Unrest in the European Union (Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

2. 2. J. Lagroye, « Les processus de politisation, » dans J. Lagroye dir., La politisation (Paris : Belin, 2003), 360-361.

3. 3. B. Giraud, K. Yon, S. Béroud, Sociologie politique du syndicalisme (Paris : Armand Colin, 2018).

4. 4. P. Rosanvallon, La question syndicale (Paris : Calmann-Lévy, 1988); D. Andolfatto, D. Labbé, « La transformation des syndicats français. Vers un nouveau ‘modèle social’? », Revue française de science politique, 56, n° 2 (2006), 281-297.

5. 5. C. Howell, « Virtual Unionism in France » dans H. Chapman, M. Kesselman, M. A. Schain dir., A Century of Organized Labor in France (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998).

6. 6. J. Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).

7. 7. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and theTheory of Groups (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 2002) (1971).

8. 8. P. Bourdieu, Langage et pouvoir symbolique (Paris : Seuil, 2014).

9. 9. T. Collombat, X. Lafrance, « Recomposition de la gauche québecoise et rôle politique du syndicalisme », Recherches sociographiques, 63, n°1-2, (2022), 133.

10. 10. M. Dobry, Sociologie des crises politiques (Paris : Presses de la fnsp, 1986).

11. 11. J’ai eu l’occasion d’appliquer cette grille d’analyse à l’attitude de fo face à l’arrivée de la gauche au pouvoir en 1981 : K. Yon, « Changement politique et changement syndical : effets et usages de 1981 dans le monde de pensée de la cgt-Force Ouvrière », dans P. Aldrin, L. Bargel, N. Bué, C. Pina, dir., Politiques de l’alternance. Sociologie des changements (de) politiques (Bellecombes-en-Bauges : Éditions du Croquant, 2016).

12. 12. P. Rouxel, K. Yon, « From Pension Reform to Regime Crisis: The Social Movement of 2023 in France », Global Labour Journal, 14, n°2 (2023), 185-188.

13. 13. P. Blavier, T. Haute, E. Penissat, « Du vote professionnel à la grève », Revue française de science politique, 70, n°3 (2020), 443-467.

14. 14. S. Béroud, K. Yon, « Face à la crise, la mobilisation sociale et ses limites. Une analyse des contradictions syndicales », Modern & Contemporary France, 20, n°20 (2012), 169-183.

15. 15. Si l’on s’en tient aux chiffres de la police, en 1995, une seule manifestation avait atteint le million, tout comme en 2003 ; 2 en 2006 ; 4 en 2010 ; 0 en 2016 ou en 2019. La France métropolitaine comprend 66 millions d’habitant dont 30 millions d’actifs.

16. 16. La plus grosse journée des Gilets jaunes fut la première, le samedi 17 novembre 2018, avec autour de 300 000 personnes mobilisées, mais sur plus de 2 000 sites.

17. 17. B. Amable, La résistible ascension du néolibéralisme (Paris : La Découverte, 2021).

18. 18. K. Yon, dir., Le syndicalisme est politique. Questions stratégiques pour un renouveau syndical (Paris : La Dispute, 2023).

19. 19. K. Yon, « Les syndicats ne sont-ils bons qu’à résister? », Mouvements (en ligne), 2024.

20. 20. L. Baccaro, C. Howell, Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations Since the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

How to cite:

Karel Yon, “French Trade Unions Put to the Test by the Political Crisis / Le syndicalisme français à l’épreuve de la crise politique,” Labour/Le Travail 95 (Spring 2025): 209–236, https://doi.org/10.52975/llt.2025v95.010.

Copyright © 2025 by the Canadian Committee on Labour History. All rights reserved.
Tous droits réservés, © « le Comité canadien sur l’histoire du travail », 2025.