Workplace voting among the five million employed by France’s smallest enterprises has put the country’s main militant trade union federation, the CGT, in pole position for the sector. Its general secretary, Philippe Martinez, welcomed the fact that his federation “with its trade unionism of ideas, of protest, of demands, of struggle and negotiation” had increased its share by 1% to 26.3.
But what could Martinez say about the level of participation? It was a disastrous 5.4% of the 4,888,296 entitled to vote this spring. That was so low as to make the outcome little more than an irrelevance amid the COVID epidemic, the steady encroachment by President Macron on the role of democracy in the country, and the jockeying for pole position among politicians on the French Right, which will determine who runs the country after the presidential vote next spring.
Martinez was a frequent presence across the broadcast media during the national industrial strikes and the protests against Macron until they were shut down by the COVID epidemic. Like others from the Left, he has now been all but sidelined as editorial controllers have moved to giving regular, almost daily, platforms to Macron’s ministers or running repeated set-piece arguments over ‘security’, ‘identity’ and ‘Republican values’.
