Labour Day sees clashes as French unions demand pay rise and bakery row continues

Labour Day marches across France on Friday focused on wages, workers' rights and the future of the 1 May public holiday, as unions pushed for higher pay, bakers and florists opened despite legal uncertainty and clashes broke out in Lyon and Nantes.

In Lyon, police fired tear gas after black bloc groups launched fireworks, mortars and other projectiles, while clashes in Nantes left a police officer with injuries to the face.

Around 320 demonstrations were planned across the country, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said. In Paris, union leaders led the main march, while large rallies were also held in Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lille.

“This is not the theft of May Day that must be put on parliament's agenda. It is a major plan to increase wages,” Sophie Binet, leader of the hard-left CGT union, said, marching beside Marylise Léon of the reformist CFDT union in Paris.

Binet called for a 5 percent rise in the minimum wage and for salaries to be linked to prices in a letter to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

Léon also called for a minimum wage increase because of inflation, along with “negotiations in the different professional sectors”.

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People pressure

In Lyon, the prefecture counted 6,500 demonstrators, while unions said 12,000 people joined the march. Four arrests were reported. In Nantes, 4,000 people marched.

In Toulouse, between 5,500 people, according to the prefecture, and 12,000, according to the CGT, marched behind a banner calling for action “for our wages, for our pensions, against the far right and for peace”.

The same banner also declared: “Day of struggle since 1889, public holiday since 1947, May Day – you will not touch it.”

In Marseille, 3,400 people marched without incident.

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Bakers and florists

Amid a national dispute over bakers and florists opening, many did so with government backing – despite 1 May's special legal status as a paid holiday for almost all workers.

Lecornu visited a bakery in Haute-Loire, while former prime minister Gabriel Attal briefly stepped behind the counter at another in Vanves, near Paris.

“This is a provocation punishable by two fines,” labour inspector and CGT official Céline Clamme told French news agency AFP.

One fine would be for working on Labour Day, while the other concerned labour rules, since unpaid voluntary work is not permitted in a commercial business, Clamme said.

Checks took place across several parts of France, including in eastern and western regions as well as the Paris area and Marseille, Clamme said, as labour inspectors monitored whether businesses were breaking France's work restrictions.

“We treated it like a normal Labour Day. There is no grey area – the law has not changed.”

The bakery visits by senior politicians also drew criticism from union leaders, who said the focus should be on working conditions rather than political messaging.

“The political leaders who go into a bakery, I think that is part of a politics of spectacle that we do not need,” Léon said. “What we need to show is the reality of a bakery worker.”

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Some bakers defended opening their shops. In Lille, Marianne Chevalier said it “doesn't bother anyone”.

“Everyone is happy to work, 10 hours or five hours, knowing that we are paid double,” she said.

At a bakery in Mérignac, near Bordeaux, a manager who gave only her first name, Morgane, said there was “no logic” in allowing fast food restaurants to open while bakeries could not.

(with newswires)