Paris (France) (AFP) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu will meet on Monday with unions and employers to discuss wages and purchasing power, in an effort to contain protests that have been ongoing for weeks, in light of a narrow financial margin and less than six months before the presidential elections.

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 11:57

The meeting comes after the fourth weekend of protests in which tens of thousands participated across France. In the afternoon, Locorno will meet with representatives of high school students and university students who continue to close some educational institutions.

The crisis began with the start of the school year in September with a movement by secondary school students to protest the deterioration of public education, and was then joined by protests against the high cost of living and others against President Emmanuel Macron, who will leave the presidency in May after ten years in power.

Before the presidential elections, which the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is considered the most likely to win, Macron finds himself stuck in a social crisis that the radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon seeks to take advantage of.

A new opinion poll published on Monday confirmed the candidates' lead. In all the scenarios tested by the Harris Interactive Institute for M6 and RTL, Le Pen qualifies for the second round of the presidential elections with Mélenchon. Le Pen receives between 34 and 36 percent of voting intentions, compared to between 18 and 19 percent for Mélenchon.

The anger has not diminished, as days of protest have continued weekly since the high school students began their movement in mid-September. The October 17 protests were marred by unprecedented violence and looting.

Without waiting for the results of the meeting with unions and employers, a union coalition that includes organizations for high school students, university students, and teachers called for a new day of demonstrations on Tuesday.

The "joke" of the minimum wage

Locorno said in a letter addressed to unions and employers on Friday that he understood the “aspirations” regarding purchasing power and the “concerns” of employers for jobs, promising “concrete responses” that he would present to the press after the meeting.

But the margin of maneuver available to his government is very narrow, as it cannot rely on a majority in the National Assembly, which has been divided since its dissolution in 2024.

In addition to its inability to pass next year's budget, the government faces a debt and budget deficit that are among the highest in Europe, while the cost of borrowing has risen sharply.

Director of the French Observatory of Economic Conditions, Xavier Thiempo, told France Culture radio on Sunday, “After ten years of dismantling social dialogue, emptying coffers, and losing the majority in Parliament, winter has arrived” and the authorities have become “helpless.”

The options proposed include moving forward the date of the automatic increase in the minimum wage to December 1 instead of January 1, approving an additional increase for it for the first time since 2012, and taking action regarding the energy subsidy voucher allocated to low-income families.

Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Varandeau wants the net minimum wage to exceed 1,500 euros, compared to 1,478 euros currently, but he will not propose an increase that would “harm employment.”

It is likely that the increase will not meet the demands of the unions.

Manuel Bombard, one of the leaders of the radical leftist "France Proud" party, described raising the minimum wage to 1,500 euros, as proposed, as a "joke," noting that this amount is only five euros more than the originally decided level due to inflation.

© 2026 AFP

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