THE Federation of Public Service and Health Service Personnel Force Ouvrière (FO-SPS) has expressed its support for striking hospital workers.
The FO-SPS said on Wednesday: ‘Since April 7th, 2025, the emergency department at the Saint-Jean-d’Angély Hospital Centre has been on strike.
‘The FO union and staff are denouncing staffing shortages, particularly among nurses and nursing assistants, leading to a significant deterioration in working conditions.
‘In this context, the FO union and staff also highlight the fact that they work in dilapidated premises, unsuitable for their professional practice, and report a lack of equipment, resulting in a decline in the quality of care provided to the population.
‘The FO Federation of Public and Health Service Personnel (FO-SPS) wishes, through this press release, to express its full support for the demands of our colleagues in the FO union and the employees of the Saint-Jean-d’Angély Hospital.
‘The FO-SPS Federation demands that these legitimate demands be addressed as quickly as possible by the hospital’s management.’
Meanwhile, fellow French trade union confederation La CGT has declared: ‘No to the closure of a Labour Exchange building in Paris!’
By a vote passed on March 25th, 2025, the Paris-Centre district council requested the transformation of a building of the Paris Labour Exchange into social housing and an emergency reception centre.
This closure aims to reduce the operating resources of employee organisations.
Voted for by the Socialist group alone (the PCF and the Greens voted against, the right abstained), this wish, supported by the Mayor of Paris, aims to reduce the operating resources of employee organisations by pitting them, in an unhealthy manner, against the essential efforts in terms of social housing in the Capital.
This sends a very bad political signal to employees working in Paris and could open the way to further resource restrictions.
La CGT said: ‘Our organisations, united in an inter-union, will firmly oppose this because the Bourse du travail provides immense services every day to the Parisian workers they advise and organise.
‘There are, moreover, many other ways of providing social housing in Paris.
‘We call on all users of the Bourse premises and residents of the capital to mobilise against this regressive and harmful project.
‘The Parisian inter-union is calling for a rally to maintain the Paris Labour Exchange on April 11th, at the Hôtel de Ville, starting at 12.30pm.’
Separately, La CGT has rushed to the defence of bourgeois democracy.
‘April 12th: Civil society calls for the defence of the rule of law,’ said La CGT, stating:
‘We, civil society organisations, call on all to express their commitment to justice and the rule of law by gathering on Saturday, April 12th, 2025 in all the cities of France.
‘In Paris, our organisations will meet at Place de la République from 5pm.
‘On March 31st, after years of legal proceedings and a contradictory judicial debate, the National Rally, (RN) along with elected officials and executives of the far right movement, were convicted of embezzlement of public funds.
‘Marine Le Pen, who was the party’s president and a member of the European Parliament at the time of the events, received the most severe sentence: Five years of ineligibility with provisional execution and four years in prison, two of which were suspended.’
RN’s abusive and shocking comments on justice
‘Since the announcement of this verdict, which resulted solely from the application of the law by independent judges, the National Rally has chosen to denounce the court’s decision in terms as abusive as they are shocking.
‘It has given credence to the idea of a “conspiracy” led by a “government of judges”, thus attracting the enthusiastic support of global far-right figures such as Trump, Musk, Bolsonaro and Salvini.
‘Even more worrying, these criticisms of a court decision have been more widely relayed by elected officials and political leaders from other parties, including the Prime Minister, and by a large number of media outlets with little regard for the reality of the facts.
‘These pronouncements immediately led to threats against the magistrates who delivered their judgment collegially.
‘Behind this violent attack on the rule of law and judges who serve it lies a rejection of what it implies: Equal treatment for all, with no one being able to claim the application of privileges linked to their birth, social status, or notoriety.
‘Of course, these attacks, which aim to challenge the foundation of our institutions protecting rights and equality before the law, are not new. But they have dangerously increased in recent years.
‘Firmly committed to the equality of all before the law, we are necessarily committed to the rule of law, which would become an empty concept if the independence of justice were not respected.
‘We also know that the rule of law protects us from another scourge.
‘For, as a guarantee of the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, the rule of law also helps ensure that the relationships formed between citizens are not abandoned to violence, force, unlimited power, or evil passions, but can be regulated by legal norms.
‘At a time when racist and anti-Semitic hatred, masculinism and anti-abortion offensives, as well as disregard for natural habitats, are experiencing renewed vigour, the rule of law appears all the more precious to us.
‘A guarantee of impartiality, equal treatment before the law, and the rejection of violence in relationships, the rule of law – inseparable from effective democracy and the protection of human rights – resonates with our convictions.
‘Those that inspire us when we reject social and environmental injustices, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, sexism, LGBTphobia, and all ideologies that seek to exploitation, oppression, hatred, and fear over respect for all.
The CGT continued: ‘Because we defend democracy and the principles that underpin it, we, civil society organisations, call on all those who share these principles to express their commitment to justice and the rule of law by gathering on Saturday, April 12th, 2025 in all the cities of France.
‘In Paris, our organisations will meet at Place de la République from 5pm.’
