France: ‘Block Everything’ a new, radical movement of revolt is emerging

Fourteen months after President Macron dissolved Parliament and called a snap general election in June-July 2024, France could go to the polls again. The immediate cause of the crisis is Prime Minister Bayrou’s decision to call for a vote of confidence in his proposed budget. He wants to impose cuts of €44 billion while the French are still reeling from cuts of €32 billion imposed in January 2025. 

Bayrou wants to attack sick pay – proposing that the first seven days of sick leave should not be paid; those suffering from long-term illnesses face drastic cuts in reimbursement of medicines; the cap on what private doctors are allowed to charge over and above what social security reimburses will also be lifted, so doctors can charge what they like while people’s national health insurance only covers a fraction of the cost. The balance will come from extra, mostly private, health insurance, or out of people’s pockets. 

Pensions will be frozen and drop by about €350 a year and, most controversially of all, two bank holidays will be cancelled. Workers will have to work Easter Monday and May 8th, but will not be paid, the money going to reflate the state coffers. Bosses are also talking about annulling the fifth week of paid annual leave workers are entitled to.

These cutbacks come while the richest 500 families in France declare €1.1 trillion in accumulated wealth between them. These families have doubled their wealth since 2017, through neoliberal policies transferring wealth to the rich while driving down living standards for everyone else. The Senate has calculated that public aid to businesses comes to €211 billion each year – and this goes mainly to the big international groups. 

“Block Everything” catches on

The reaction to these proposals last May was initially muted, limited to some groups on social media who launched the slogan “Bloquons Tout – Block Everything.” As with the Yellow Vests movement in 2018, people were initially concerned that the slogans might come from the far right. Some proposals were passive, suggesting people stay home and avoid consuming, or using their credit cards, on September 10th. The response of leaders of the Left and the unions was barely lukewarm. In his blog on July 30th, the leader of La France Insoumise, Jean Luc Mélenchon, said it was a good thing that this kind of movement existed, but that its autonomy and independence was a necessary condition for its success. This more than cautious approach was echoed by the union leaders. 

But during the month of August, the groups which had started online, on Telegram and so on, began to snowball. The leaders of the Left became interested. Now all the parties of the Left have proclaimed their support for the call to block everything, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon has gone so far as to call for a general strike. This puts the union leaders under pressure, as can be seen from CGT general secretary Sophie Binet’s tetchy reply that if Mélenchon wanted a General Strike, ‘he should join a union and argue for that in his local branch.’ Now the CGT has put out a call to build the strike wherever possible. 

Various branches of the CGT had declared they will strike – in the energy sector, gas and electricity workers are organising strike pickets from 2nd September. The CGT Chemical Industries has also called its members out on strike on the 10th. The CGT in the commercial sector has called shopworkers out in places like Carrefour, Primark, Kiabi, or Sodexo.  It called for a strike of public sector workers on September 10th, as did SUD, Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques, a  group of trade unions, which often puts forward more radical demands. 

All the health sector unions are calling for general assemblies to be held in the hospitals to prepare a strike.  So far, SUD is the only union to call rail workers out. 

The school students’ union has called its members to block their lycées on the 10th, while UNEF has called on university students to strike. Teachers’ unions are meeting on September 3rd to decide on action. 

The other unions, CFDT and FO, traditionally more conservative, have asked the united union leadership – the intersyndicale – to call for a day of strikes on September 18th. Air controllers are having a series of strikes at the moment, with the next day planned for the 18th, though Sud Aérien has called on them to block the airports on the 10th. The CGT leadership says this later date is much better for everyone.  This shows how institutionalised the union leadership really are, and how much they avoid concerted across the board action and really do not want to rock the political boat. 

But they are caught between showing how reasonable they are on the one hand, and being overwhelmed by a movement from below that they can’t control.

They are under pressure from a highly politicised, radical left whose arguments are finding an echo in the working class.

A study by the Jean Jaurès foundation, published in Libération on September 1st, analysed the profile of the average online activist behind the ‘Block Everything’ movement, whose slogan is supported by 63% of French people. After getting people to return questionnaires distributed on the movement’s social networks, it concluded that the base of the movement was very different from that of the Yellow Vests movement of 2018.

The typical member of the Block Everything movement is a sympathiser of the radical left, in active employment and integrated in society, living in a smaller town in provincial France. By contrast, the Yellow Vests movement had been characterised by a wide diversity of political preferences. 

Nearly 69% of Block Everything respondents said they had voted for Mélenchon in the first round of the 2022 Presidential election, (he got 22% of the vote). Only 11% said they’d voted for Macron or the far right. The movement is not open to the far right Rassemblement Nationale, (National Rally) and this is reflected in the fact that the RN does not support it. 

Over 68% of survey respondents said they abstained or voted blank in the second round, compared with 35% of the general population. Their political priorities show a high level of ideological cohesion.

91% agreed that to establish social justice, we must take from the rich to give to the poor, as opposed to 63% of the general population.

Only 11% agreed that the unemployed could find work if they wanted to, as against 60% of the general population. 

Only 15% agreed there were too many foreigners in France, as opposed to 65% of the general population. 

While the Yellow Vests’ unity came from a shared experience of precarity and a focus on the demand for greater purchasing power, Block Everything supporters are more ideologically homogenous. They are almost all in favour of a radical redistribution of wealth and they reject far right themes related to identity. 

The rise in social inequalities was the main preoccupation of those who answered the survey. Protection of the environment came second, with 43% saying it was a priority, as opposed to 23% of the population in general. The future of the health system was a priority for 30% of respondents, as opposed to 19% of the population in general. 

Cost of living issues were a priority for 38%, close to the national average. However, only 3-4% said questions of security or national identity were a priority.

The study concluded that Block Everything members are already highly politicised and aware of political and ideological issues – while the Yellow Vests was more of a direct expression of anger at the difficult living condition of the popular classes and the precarity they faced. Retirees are less represented than in the Yellow Vests movement. Block Everything members also tend to be better educated, compared to Yellow Vest members. 

The driving force of Block Everything is an extreme defiance toward the political leaders in place, accused of being corrupt, and more widely, the institutions of the Fifth Republic.  

The study director, Antoine Bristielle, says, 

“This distinction highlights one of the reasons the movement exists: to build a dynamic of transformation based not on the classical political institutions but on structures of contestation and struggle rooted in organised civil society.”

He adds that “the vote, seen as insufficient or captured by a minority, has been replaced by a logic of rupture and direct collective action.”

People’s assemblies and radical left politics

While the media has seized on this profile to say that Block Everything is not representative of the popular classes, what is significant is the forces in wider society – especially the popular classes – that it has set in motion. Reports are coming in of popular assemblies of hundreds of people in towns and cities around the country. 

A France3 TV report on one such meeting in the Normandy town of Caen interviewed two activists who corresponded to the survey profile – young, educated, but also ‘working poor’, struggling to make ends meet – who demanded a fairer allocation of wealth and an end to the destruction of the social welfare system. Over 350 people attended the meeting in Caen. The radical Left website Contre-Attaque listed other assemblies – 500 people in Nantes, 400 in Paris, 300 in Lyon, 250 in Rennes, and so on. The site says over 60 assemblies have already been held to prepare for September 10th. Also, former members of the Yellow Vests have been present in the organising meetings.

It is also significant that there is a consensus among the forces of the radical left – from Jean Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, to radical philosophers like Frédéric Lordon, to sites like Contre-Attaque and Olivier Besancenot’s Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. All argue that once the Prime Minister Bayrou had been ejected, Macron and his rotten fifth republic must go. This convergence of ideas falls short of calling for outright insurrection, but Macron’s government is shaky enough, and the forces of the radical Left determined enough, for it to be possible. 

Since the electoral success of the New Popular Front in the General Election last July, and Macron’s refusal to nominate a prime minister from its ranks, or allow it to govern, La France Insoumise has campaigned for Macron’s departure. 

At the same time, it has widened its base considerably through tireless work for Palestine, which has brought accusations of anti-semitism, support for terrorism, and all kinds of calumnies down on Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s head. 

The party has worked to get voters registered in the popular neighbourhoods where immigrant workers live, and can count on the electoral support of many members of the Muslim population. Fréderic Lordon is optimistic that LFI has sufficient weight to get Mélenchon elected President next time around. He points out that since the far right RN have dropped their hostility to Europe, and the centre parties have become as racist as they are, Only LFI stands out as a political opposition. The fact that the media hate Mélenchon might actually turn out to be a positive thing, he believes. 

At the same time, LFI has built up a formidable party organisation, with a strong presence online, meetings for activists and supporters both online and off, with all kinds of political activities – postering, public meetings, door-to-door canvassing, educationals and preparatory meetings for the local government elections, as well as a consistent presence in mobilisations for Palestine. 

Maintain the momentum 

Bayrou is practically certain to lose the vote on September 8th, and his government will fall. Macron’s options are limited. He can find another prime minister from his own supporters, but the same problems will be repeated. He could nominate a Left prime minister, but he will not be likely to do this, since it would mean recognising that the Left came out on top in the last General Election, and that he refused to recognise it in what some have called a coup d’état. 

The PS is trying to help Macron by volunteering to run the Government for him, and telling the rest of the left that the programme of the New Popular Front will have to be modified. But the PS will not get the support of the rest of the left, so its opportunist enterprise is doomed, too. Finally, Macron can dissolve parliament and call a general election, with the risk that the radical left LFI wins, or that the RN does. 

The RN is waiting for the next elections to be called but has refused to support the Block Everything movement. We can expect that the government and the fascists will do their best to destroy the movement, because that is a necessary condition for the RN to govern. We must do everything we can to make sure our movement succeeds, and block everything on September 10th.