“Our ports are used as pawns in geopolitical conflicts”: why French and European dockers are on strike

In France, they “are going to be at a standstill at 95%”. The ports were disrupted on Friday October 30 by a twenty-four hour strike by dockers, at the call of the National Federation of Ports and Docks CGT, which represents nearly 90% of employees in the sector. No loading or unloading must be carried out, according to the instructions.

Some 14,000 workers, including 7,500 dockers, are affected by the strike call in Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Le Havre, Rouen, Paris (Haropa), Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Roscoff, Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Port-Vendres, Sète, Fos-sur-Mer, Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Bastia, Ajaccio and on Reunion Island. The movement also concerns other European countries, such as Greece and Italy. Franceinfo returns to the reasons for this mobilization.

A protest against the militarization of ports The first call for a strike for Friday was launched in a European context, by the European Dockworkers Council (EDC), and at the international level by other dockers' federations, notably in Turkey and India. “The recent EU Ports Strategy confirms a worrying trend towards deregulation, the militarization of our infrastructure and the subjugation of our labor rights to the interests of the 'war economy',” the EDC explained on Facebook. In its EU maritime industrial strategy adopted on March 4, the Commission indeed mentions the “strong military dimension” of the sector.

“The cost and packaging of sending military equipment are much lower by sea than by air transport,” Florian Manet, an expert in maritime governance and security, explains to France 3 Normandie. "European states must be ready to be able to project themselves militarily if necessary." Also read Dockers' strike: what is this "militarization of ports" which is causing anger throughout Europe European unions are opposed to a project which promotes "military mobility", by facilitating the transit of defense equipment via civilian transport infrastructures.

“We cannot allow our ports to be used as pawns in geopolitical conflicts,” defends the EDC. Union representatives from 35 European ports signed a joint declaration on May 19 in Istanbul (Turkey) to refuse that dockworkers "become a link in the chain of wars." The declaration also calls for "an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza", adds Serge Coutouris, deputy general secretary of the CGT Federation of Ports and Docks, in La Marseillaise.

Opposition to the government budgetThe CGT is contesting measures in the French government's draft budget. They “destroy our solidarity systems”, says the union in a press release. “The future Lecornu budget project, which wishes to impose new efforts on the French people, perfectly illustrates the anti-social and anti-democratic orientations while shareholder increase by billions”, we can still read in the press release from the National Federation of Ports and Docks CGT.

Machine-translated from French