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Narrow Majority of French Back Labor Reform Protests: Poll

  • Union workers demonstrate on the day of nationwide protests against the French government’s proposed labor reforms in Marseille, France, March 9, 2016.

    Union workers demonstrate on the day of nationwide protests against the French government’s proposed labor reforms in Marseille, France, March 9, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 15 May 2016
Opinion

A month and a half after the movement began, almost half of the population supports the movement against neoliberal labor reform.

A slim majority of French people are in favor of protests against a deeply contested labor reform the ruling Socialist Party is pushing through parliament, a poll showed on Sunday.

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Some 54 percent of those surveyed said they supported the protests against the labor bill while 45 percent did not, according to the BVA poll of 1,160 people on May 12 and 13 for Orange and Itele.

According to another poll released Saturday by daily Le Parisien, public support for the protests lost 11 percentage points over one month to 49 percent, allegedly related to the repeatedly violent clashes with riot police.

Various organizations, including Amnesty International in a recent report, warned about the unncessarily brutal French police, as many protestors were reported injured. On Saturday, public channel France 2 broadcasted the images of police officers mistreating its own journalists during the coverage of the protest, despite knowing they were journalists.

 

Protesters' anger is focused on the government's plans to make firing easier despite stubbornly high unemployment rates.

The government faces strikes and new waves of protests after opting last week to use a rarely used constitutional clause to pass the legislation in the face of opposition from rebel Socialist lawmakers and other leftists.

Street protests have been called for next week while unions have called on railway workers, dockers, truckers, airport and refinery workers to hold strikes.

Opposition to the reform has also spawned a series of protests by youths that have grown into a broader anti-establishment movement, named “Nuit Debout” or “Satnding up all Night.”

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However, as those protests have become increasingly violent in clashes with riot police, their public support has fallen, down 11 percentage points over one month to 49 percent, according to an Odoxa poll of 993 people on May 12 and 13 for Le Parisien newspaper.

In a visit to the western city of Rennes to support riot police enforcing a protest ban after violent clashes, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 1,300 people had been arrested across France since the start of the protests two months ago, and 51 people were sentenced.

He vowed to keep cracking down on any cases of "extreme violence".

Police said that up to 2,000 people gathered on Sunday to demonstrate and hold concerts at Paris' Place de la Republique, where the youth protests first sprung up with all-night protests.

The protest coincided with the 5th anniversary of Spanish social movement Los Indignados, which has been referred to as a potential inspiration for Nuit Debout. Nuit Debout launched a worldwide campaign on the same day under the name "Global Debout," and about 130 cities in 28 countries responded to the call according to organizers.

A map of the mobilizations Sunday. Source: Facebook Nuit Debout

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