Paris, Gare de Lyon railway station

According to Interior Ministry figures, 200,000 people participated in the 10 September day of action, built outside traditional mobilisation frameworks. For this Thursday 18 September, territorial intelligence services predict the presence of 800,000 people in demonstrations. Are these signs heralding a major social movement to come?

Olivier Besancenot: As usual, we don’t know. But there are notable positive things in the 10 September movement. First, participation in preparatory general assemblies (GAs). It’s important to see that there’s self-organisation in the movement. We had all noted that this was missing in 2023, during the battle against pension reform [3]. Even in the most combative sectors, amongst railway workers for example, there were few people in general assemblies and therefore difficulty in continuing strikes.

The practice of GAs has been in decline since at least the early 2000s. In 2003, during the battle against the Fillon law on pensions [4], I remember inter-professional GAs where we were 800 to 900 at the Gennevilliers labour exchange. In following years, if there were 150 people, it was a maximum. Will this self-organisation be durable? Impossible to say. But we note that things are happening, amongst hospital workers notably, or in the regions.

The second notable element is that 10 September was quite young. I think this confirms that a new generation has begun to engage for more than a year, perhaps on somewhat different themes.

Simon Duteil: I’d rather say that 10 September reveals the necessity of having a major social movement. If we don’t quickly have vast mobilisation, we know the far right is lurking behind. It’s at the gates of power and we can’t count too much on left-wing political organisations to successfully block its path.

Today, we sense the atmosphere is one of mobilisation. There’s much anger and fear, but I want to believe in it. The 10 September was frankly good, even if we could always have hoped for more. On 18 September, if we’re close to a million demonstrators, that means carrying a broad inter-union unitary call has real impact and there’s momentum. Now we must go further, give perspectives to strengthen mobilisation and especially the strike.

The 10^th movement had set blocking the country as its strategy, rather than making numbers in demonstrations, judged by many as ineffective for winning. Yet, whilst we could observe very many blocking attempts, few succeeded against police pressure. Conversely, it was rather the demonstrations that were striking by their size. Does this call blocking strategies into question?

Simon Duteil: The very good news is that 10 September widely spread the idea that to change things, we must achieve an economic blockade. Struggle and social transformation unionists have carried this for a long time. The question we must discuss with the greatest number is: “how do we achieve this?”

There’s sometimes a form of magical thinking – also spread by political currents – that is substitutionist. It implies it’s enough to block this or that place to win. We could have this type of thing in the past around refineries for example. I profoundly think that economic blockade is primarily organised and obtained through strikes.

It’s primarily because people stop working that there’s blockade and that frees time for the movement. Of course, there can be occasional blockades of this or that zone, but I don’t believe in construction from the outside. You don’t block the port because you’re going to block the port with a few people. You paralyse it because port workers stop working.

Many say “the big demonstrations during pensions didn’t work”. Obviously, that wasn’t sufficient and we lost. But what we didn’t succeed in 2023, whilst we tried, was launching the economic blockade from 7 March. We weren’t capable of having enough people on strike and especially general assemblies to be able to decide what follows. If we just wait for dates that fall from above, we won’t win.

Olivier Besancenot: The gilets jaunes [5], pensions... when you start with, behind you, broadly failures, obviously you seek other things. Including with a part of illusion about needing to renounce strikes or long-term organisation.

But we also have social movements legitimately seeking how to have weight, a self-learning that’s important. The movement also inherits something profound: the decrease since the 1970s in the number of strike days. Because the wage-earning class is no longer the same, because statuses are no longer the same, because there’s also a crumbling of the workers’ movement. So there’s no miracle solution in this matter. Intuitively, I’d say there will probably be combinations of different action modalities, including some we don’t yet envisage.

What was also striking on 10 September was the strong youth mobilisation. This wasn’t the case during pension reforms in 2019 and 2023 or even during the Yellow Vests. Does this mark a rupture?

Olivier Besancenot: We have the right to be enthusiastic about positive events. At the RATP bus centre Belliard in the 18^th arrondissement [6] where I was, it was only clusters of young people coming. They were in contact on loops, who were going to block the périphérique [7], who came back.

All proportions considered, during the legislative elections something happened against the RN [8] that played in the NFP’s [9] victory, it was one of the tipping points. On Palestine on internationalist terrain, we only see them. On feminist terrain, it’s the same.

In this new transition period, which is frustrating by nature, it’s the fundamental challenge. The connection must be made with the rest of the organised or unorganised wage-earning class. It’s something extremely positive because by nature a youth movement is unpredictable.

Simon Duteil: I hope this reveals an action capacity of youth that doesn’t want to suffer retrograde and antisocial policies. But also of youth that sees ecological urgency and cares about struggles against discrimination and for real equality (feminist, anti-racist, anti-ableist, LGBTQIA+). This conscientised youth clearly sees that the general situation is one of rising fascism. And therefore there’s a necessity to mobilise.

Now, I don’t know what form this can take. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen an important student movement for example. Universities have changed a lot and the capacities to prevent a student movement have become enormous. You just need to look at the speed with which police now intervene on campuses. So, there are factors that slow things down, but there’s also underlying anger and the will not to be imposed a shit future.

Despite the success of Block Everything, there were quite few rebounds between 10 September and the inter-union date of 18 September. Moreover, general assemblies haven’t expanded since the demonstrations. Are the action modalities and organisational forms of “Block Everything” not adapted to welcome the mass of people mobilised on the 10^th? Conversely, does this reflect the low willingness of the greatest number to organise?

Simon Duteil: The coming weeks will tell us. If Thursday, strikers’ GAs say in certain places “it must continue, we’re organising, we’re trying, we’re launching”, this will arouse strong interest.

After that, regarding GA participation, what’s complicated is what’s your GA level. You can hold a general assembly at your workplace, GAs of all workers in a category at city scale or of strikers at inter-professional level. However, there are biases. In Saint-Denis [10] where I am, we’ve had, in the past, superb inter-professional general assemblies with strikers from many categories. But other times, inter-professional GAs composed mostly of teachers. Instead of discussing the capacity to strike their sector, they wanted to act at city scale, but finally without developing the strike.

In fact, the “Block Everything” call allows acting outside frameworks that would come from above, with grassroots construction. But effectively, there wasn’t huge enthusiasm for different GAs after the 10^th, from what I could see. Should we continue making small blockades? Blocking this motorway or that périphérique will certainly be visible, but will expose to major risks, with ultra-violent police, without ensuring a lasting balance of power. In any case, not at the desired scale.

If there were 3 million people participating, I obviously wouldn’t say exactly the same thing, but today we’re not at that mass. However, if it develops and the 10^th spark becomes a fire that burns durably, I think there will be many more assemblies that exist.

Within the “Block Everything” dynamic, there exists a certain mistrust vis-à-vis trade union organisations and criticism of dates that fall from above, “leapfrog” days [11], even defiance vis-à-vis the inter-union alliance or its components. On the other side, certain unions have kept their distance from this movement. Are the two dynamics condemned not to add their forces?

Simon Duteil: Obviously, the inter-union alliance is broad and not everyone pursues exactly the same objectives. The CFDT [12] isn’t a struggle and social transformation union. But I don’t see the point either of saying it’s a union that will betray. Today, it’s important to have a strong inter-union call, saying it’s not normal that workers must always pay more, that there are other solutions. It’s a support point to go further. Effectively if the inter-union alliance isn’t capable of quickly calling for something else after the 18^th, we could say it didn’t serve at best. But it’s not contradictory with the Block Everything movement.

The fact that there are anti-union discourses can be explained by a vision somewhat distant from what unionism is. But in reality, if a strong social movement takes hold, all this will be overwhelmed. The energy of mobilisation will carry everything away. There will be strikers’ GAs, plenty of demonstrations, visibility in cities, in the countryside, in all places where something will happen and it will overflow.

Not everyone will play the same tune, but what counts is that there’s construction of mobilisation. Everyone feels there’s this necessity and that gives energy. It’s the same for criticism of “leapfrog” days. I don’t really know what that means, because I don’t see at what place, like that, suddenly, everyone goes on renewable strike without preparation.

So yes, we need days that allow making a support point, counting ourselves, bringing more workers, convincing more people, telling ourselves “yes, we can win together” and restoring confidence. However, that mustn’t be the only tactic and we return to the question of economic blockade. It’s generalised strike and the capacity to block that will make us win. Consequently, I don’t oppose the two.

Olivier Besancenot: The radicalisation of the opposing camp obliges us to find each other again. But for this, we need to put oil in the gears. We need militant practices that exist often more locally than at national scale. For example, seeing LGBTI collectives in pension movements or pink blocs [13] in demonstrations – all this in good atmosphere – I’m not sure that, 10, 15 or 20 years ago, this was conceivable.

When I went to Tours [14], I saw CGT [15] and SUD [16] railway workers, precisely with these same collectives, making strike collections and speaking with one voice in public meetings. You can multiply examples between certain feminist, ecological sectors or in neighbourhood collectives. I won’t amplify reality, obviously it has plenty of contradictions, debates, disagreements, divisions, but there’s also this ant activity that exists.

The 18 September day of action promises to be strong, even very strong. What are the elements that would allow significantly increasing the balance of power against the executive after this date?

Simon Duteil: Besides what the government itself does, and which stokes anger, it’s our capacity to emerge from a form of shock. The succession of different governments and the international situation have impact. We see post-fascist, very authoritarian governments rising everywhere, including in places where we didn’t expect them.

What can increase the balance of power is people telling themselves we can take our lives back into our own hands. As workers, as population, we have this power. The interest of 10 September was to show there was a desire not to be pushed around. The importance of the 18^th is to show there’s a broad spectrum of anger and there are demands.

What will make the difference is: are we capable on the 18^th and in following days of discussing in workplaces and cities to know how we ensure we don’t wait a month or two. We must take advantage of the fact there’s this anger and energy to go further. We don’t go home normally, we don’t return to work normally, we find modalities to derail the everyday train and impose other things than what we’re suffering.

Olivier Besancenot: It will depend on 18 September’s strength. According to first returns, it seems strike rates won’t be ridiculous. But also that the atmosphere isn’t for renewable strikes either. So, I don’t know. I’ve seen calls for the following Sunday to occupy squares that are starting to circulate. Shouldn’t we, at some point, envisage something on the order of a show of force with a national march?

But behind the political crisis and anti-Macron aspect, the mobilising question is that of wealth redistribution. It’s always the same who pay and always the same who profit. Now, it must stop! We must envisage something that allows being unitary, accompanying the movement without substituting for it.

One last thing to add?

Olivier Besancenot: I’ll add another layer on repression. It’s also one of the elements that can set powder on fire. In May 1968 [17], it was with the Sorbonne evacuation for example. In the radicalisation of power, as in the political crisis and government vacancy, the interlocutor is Bruno Retailleau [18], with his political ambitions. It would be good for unitary networks to seriously set about fighting repression. We can do this from now because we know it’s planted in the scenery.

Simon Duteil: I think you don’t build mass mobilisations without having sectoral reflections on specific demands. Typically, I’m in education in the 93 [19]. There, it’s bringing back the emergency plan 93 [20]. We need constructed elements to say “this is what we need, this is what we want”. We want pension reform abrogated, but also public service strengthening and we must be capable of quantifying it.

When we see France Unbowed [21], or others, saying 10 September was to say goodbye to Bayrou [22], that 18^th will be to say goodbye to Macron, that’s not the subject. The subject isn’t Macron, but wealth sharing.

Interview and transcription: Guillaume Bernard and Stéphane Ortega

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