More than half a million people took to the streets in France on Thursday in protests against budget-tightening efforts, raising pressure on president Emmanuel Macron’s new prime minister as he seeks support from a parliament that has toppled two premiers in a year.
Striking workers across the country blocked public transport, closed pharmacies and disrupted schools in protest against Mr Macron’s leadership, calling for prime minister Sébastien Lecornu to abandon the 2026 budget plans outlined by his predecessor.
Hailing the nationwide action as a “success” Sophie Binet, head of the CGT union, said “the message I have for Mr Lecornu is that the streets must write this budget and if not, Mr Lecornu will end up in the streets”.
The CGT said more than a million people had taken part in the protests. But local and national authorities put the tally at little over half a million, with 55,000 people on the streets of Paris. The numbers are roughly half the size of protests against Mr Macron’s unpopular pension reforms in 2023 that brought widespread disruption.
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The strikes came a week after 197,000 people took part in a “block everything” action, which was not organised by labour unions and caused more dispersed and violent disruption.
Thursday’s protests were co-ordinated by eight unions across the country and were largely peaceful, with about 140 arrests reported by the interior ministry in the afternoon.
The scale of the protests shows the difficulty French politicians encounter when trying to reduce the country’s deficit, which is expected to reach 5.4 per cent of GDP by the end of the year – one of the highest in the Eurozone.
France’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 113 per cent in 2024 and its borrowing costs now rival those of Italy and Greece.
Mr Macron’s last two prime ministers, Michel Barnier and François Bayrou, were toppled by the country’s divided National Assembly over their budget plans.
The protests were initially organised against Mr Bayrou’s fiscal plans, which included unpopular measures such as the scrapping of two bank holidays and maintained Mr Macron’s pension reform that lifted the retirement age to 64.
With Mr Lecornu yet to name a government and outline how much of Mr Bayrou’s draft budget he plans to keep, the movement has morphed into a general expression of discontent with Mr Macron.
[ France’s moment of peril as a debt mountain fuels a political crisisOpens in new window ]
The strikes will embolden the centre-left Socialist Party, whose support Mr Lecornu needs to pass a budget. It has called for a more modest deficit reduction plan of €22 billion, largely by imposing a large wealth tax.
“French people have the feeling of having voted, having protested and having never been heard . . . we need to find another way,” Olivier Faure, Socialist leader, told broadcaster TF1. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
