Inter-union mobilization in Cévennes: “Sick civil servants are not guilty, but victims”

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Around 650 people marched in the streets of Alès this Thursday, December 5. A look back in pictures. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

Environ 650 personnes ont défilé dans les rues d'Alès ce jeudi 5 décembre. Retour en images. MIDI LIBRE – CHARLES LEDUC

À Alès, dans le Gard, environ 650 personnes ont défilé, dans la matinée de ce jeudi 5 décembre, contre le "dénigrement des fonctionnaires".

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Despite the Barnier government being censored the day before, the national call for inter-union mobilisation to defend public services was also being followed in the city centre of Alès on the morning of Tuesday 5 December. From the gathering in front of the sub-prefecture, Martine Sagit, the general secretary of the local union (UL) CGT, bounced back by alluding to the mobilization of territorial agents of Molières-sur-Cèze, on strike one day a week since the announcements, in the guise of “project of destruction” , of Guillaume Kasbarian, resigning Minister of the Civil Service, and the announced departure of Michel Barnier from the executive: “Thanks to them, thanks to censorship, he is gone!”

“The denigration of civil servants” denounced

Speaking then on behalf of the inter-union in front of some 650 people, according to the police, Myriam Vermale (FSU-SNUipp30) tackles a government which has “chosen the denigration of civil servants” and, she says, would have “deceived”the population by inflating the absences of agents by including those during the Covid health crisis. “Sick civil servants are not guilty, but victims”, she continues, denouncing in particular the plan to introduce a three-day waiting period in the event of a stoppage, as in the private sector, which would be an “unfair deterioration of working conditions”. On this point, the head of the UL indicates that “the government does not want to admit that sick leave, even if it is more numerous than in the private sector, is often the symptom of often intolerable working conditions due to staff reductions” .

A new meeting of trade union organizations

Civil servants “are tired of being mistreated, mocked and responsible for all the evils”, asserts Myriam Vermale, for whom the State's savings “must not be made on their backs”, but by looking at the side of “social exemptions and compensation made to employers”. She warns: “The organizations will meet again after this day of strikes and mobilizations that must call for others…”

The desire to “win this battle”

Martine Sagit is furious: we must “prevent successive liberal governments from destroying, one by one, all public services. Winning this battle means winning rights for all users, not just civil servants […] Let's call on users to mobilize with us. Public service is the property of each and everyone!”The CGT member finally turns her gaze towards Matignon: “Let's hope that the next government will take into account everything that has happened and take into account the vote that took place for a better world…”

The mobilization for the Tamaris post office continues

The situation in Alès is invited. After hospital workers announced a gathering in front of the Alès hospital at 2 p.m., the future of the Tamaris post office is discussed when the procession stops in front of the town hall. A loudspeaker spits out: “Money for the public, for the Tamaris post office.” At the podium, Jérôme Lacroix, general secretary of the CGT Fédération de l’activité postale et des télécommunications (FAPT), even if the closure of the Tamaris establishment has not been “decided yet”, calls for “not to let our guard down, quite the contrary”. He then says that he was received by Max Roustan, the mayor of Alès, before the demonstration, for about thirty minutes, and that the latter “undertook to exercise his right of veto” the closure of this post office. But to keep up the pressure, he has already announced a mobilization at the next municipal council, which will be held on Monday, December 16, at 6 p.m., in the Atome building on rue Michelet. “We will go all the way to victory!”