All France Travail unions are calling for a strike on September 29 for wages and against austerity

All France Travail unions are calling for a strike and demonstration on September 29 as part of the civil service day of action, for salaries and against the operator's successive reorganizations and budget cuts, they announced on Thursday. For the first time since 2018, all ten of France Travail's union organizations are calling for mobilization, representatives stressed during a press conference.

Like the other demonstrators, they intend to ask for an increase in salaries while the government plans to freeze the index point of civil servants again in 2027, but also want to warn about the impact of austerity on the public employment service, while unemployment is rising (8.3% of the active population in the 2nd quarter of 2026). “Since the creation of France Travail (in January 2024, Editor's note), staff have undergone a succession of reorganizations (...) which reduce our missions and further degrade our working conditions every day”, while “users are under increasing pressure”, in particular via job search controls, denounce the organizations in a press release.

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The fear of a further reduction in their resources

They fear a further reduction in resources in the 2027 budget, where 2.5 billion euros in savings are requested from the Ministry of Labor. According to Les Échos, France Travail would lose around 100 million euros and 400 jobs, after having lost 515 in 2026. “When France Travail was created, (...) the entire transformation was based on the Full Employment law which provided for unemployment at 5%,” underlines Olivier Penobert, CFDT representative at the central CSE of France Travail. “Today we have a problem with the sustainability of the transformation proposed to us.” The generalization, by April, of a system of support for the unemployed at two levels, “intensive” and “essential”, makes unions fear an explosion in the number of “essential” files entrusted to an advisor.

They also point to a very variable application from one department to another of the scale of sanctions in force since 2025 against unemployed people who have failed to meet their obligations. In the event of "remobilization" of the person, payment of allowances resumes but without making up for those which have not been paid, contrary to what was provided for by law, also denounced Guillaume Bourdic of the CGT. Another source of concern is the deployment of artificial intelligence. The unions, believing that it is used as a “tool to manage the workforce”, are calling for a moratorium on deployment until a collective agreement is signed.