Hundreds of thousands of people have marched across France in a day of nationwide strikes against the French Government’s austerity budget. The protests on November 5 came a day after the National Assembly threw out the first part of the 2027 finance bill.
Authorities put turnout at about 600,000, according to Euronews, while unions claimed more than 1.5 million.
MPs rejected the revenue section of the bill on November 4 by 458 votes to none, with two abstentions. Under French budget rules, that sank the whole text at first reading.
The Senate would examine the government’s original draft from November 20, with a vote scheduled for December 9. A joint committee of both chambers would then seek a compromise before the bill returned to the Assembly.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government has proposed €43 billion in savings. It aims to cut the deficit to 5 per cent of GDP in 2027.
France has been under an EU excessive deficit procedure since July 2024. The state of its public finances has alarmed financial markets and drawn pressure from the European Union.
In a joint statement, major unions said the budget targeted the most vulnerable and the sick, froze social benefits and weakened social security. Sophie Binet, head of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), said the deficit should be tackled by reintroducing taxes on the wealthiest individuals and largest companies.
Binet also claimed the French protests had sparked a wider European movement. Cost-of-living demonstrations were held in Belgium, Italy and Portugal on October 17.
Interior minister Laurent Nuñez said more than 70,000 officers would be deployed, with keeping the marches peaceful as their main task. Security was tightened after rioting and looting across France on October 17-18.
Intelligence services had warned of strong interest from left-wing and violent groups in provoking unrest. Unions and rights groups condemned what they described as excessive and authoritarian policing after authorities rejected the unions’ planned route through Paris.
The movement began in mid-September with student protests over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and university admissions. Student unions dismissed as insufficient an October 26 package of €4 billion in cheap loans for school renovations and 15,000 extra university places.
Rising fuel prices, linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the Middle East conflict, added to the anger. The government began releasing 10 million barrels of diesel from strategic reserves on November 1 and economy minister Roland Lescure said pump prices had since fallen by an average of 15 cents a litre.
The unrest came less than six months before the presidential election in April 2027. Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) leads opinion polls, ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing France Unbowed (LFI).
