Hospital strike kicks off latest French anti-austerity fight
Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Paris
If it’s September then there must be a huge anti-austerity movement getting underway in France, because that’s been the case every year since 2010 and this year is no different.
Hospital workers became the first sector to strike and protest nationwide since the summer vacation period ended.
Hospital workers want 10,000 more workers hired and the creation of more hospital beds, both of which would drastically improve treatment for the average patient. However, such demands are essentially a call to reverse years of austerity measures from a president who is even more committed to austerity than his two predecessors.
Many emergency care workers have been on strike for a stunning six months. This week President Emmanuel Macron announced he had found 750 million euros to try and finally end a long-running labor crisis.
France’s health care system was ranked #1 in the world as recently as the year 2000. However, its quality has plummeted as the French state pays off the failures of private banks and gives huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy in the so-far failed hope that it will create broad economic growth.
A major train strike will take place later this week, and unions will unite for huge strikes this month. Macron’s pension rollback is the primary target. However, his push to privatize major state assets this fall is also deeply unpopular, as are many of other his policies and previous decisions.
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