“An isolated day produces few results,” says sociologist Jean-François Amadieu after the mobilization of November 5

This text corresponds to the transcription of part of the interview above. Click on the video to watch the interview in full. Djamel Mazi: Hello Jean-François Amadieu, sociologist, specialist in social movements.

Do we know exactly who was in the street yesterday? Jean-François Amadieu: There was a fairly diverse profile, which also explains why the figures were not bad. I still remind you that it was not only the union organizations, all the union organizations that called for a day of strike and demonstrations, it was also student and high school student organizations.

So obviously, it's much broader. Added to this is the mobilization of political groups or some of them. Sophie Binet, the boss of the CGT, says: “The question is not: are we going to win?

But: when will we win? “Is it already won for the unions? Yes, so it’s a bit of theater, social relations, as you know, and Sophie Binet is in her role.

We clearly saw the statements yesterday by Marylise Léon for the CFDT and Sophie Binet. Classically, you say at the end of a day: “this will continue. The teams will decide and we will not stop”.

What we know is that when you hold isolated days of mobilization, what we call interprofessional days, especially public service days, it has a limited impact. Everyone knows that for there to be a little more tangible results, you would have to have strike movements, work stoppages, for example on salaries or on reasons like that. Otherwise, a single day produces little results.

The unions, whose professional elections will take place in December, are returning to the center of the mobilizations. The balance of power has clearly changed since yesterday, between government and unions? I believe that you are absolutely right about the importance of professional elections and the classic phenomenon, we have always observed that, the hardening.

Everyone wants to show that they are more combative than the others for a simple reason that must be remembered in France, which is that employees in general, especially those in the public, like the French more generally, always support demonstrations and strikes on social issues, sometimes up to more than 90%, depending on the category of staff. So that explains why combativeness pays off electorally. There is a demand for combativeness and opposition.

That doesn't stop the CFDT from getting good scores, it remains the leading organization. So indeed, it is an element that counts. So is the balance of power really reversed?

It must nevertheless be remembered that trade union organizations have had difficulty obtaining results in recent years, whether at the national level, on pensions for example, or in certain companies or public companies. Regarding retirement, this was done with agreements in the National Assembly, with political parties. It's more complicated, whereas the Yellow Vests, who were not at all supported from the start by the trade union organizations, and not at all by the CGT at the time, obtained results very quickly.

Machine-translated from French