“We said to ourselves that it was the moment to show that we were a little desperate,” summarizes the Infirmiers Libérations en Colère collective.

“The Olympic Games are a pivotal moment, and we said to ourselves that this was the moment to show that we were a little desperate”, summarizes Wednesday June 5 on franceinfo Gaëlle Cannat, co-president and national administrator of the Infirmiers Libéraux en Colère collective. Several union organizations in the collective have signed a forum to warn about the working conditions of liberal nurses, and are threatening to strike during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Gaëlle Cannat affirms that liberal nurses are “the great forgotten” post-Covid measures, and in particular Ségur de la Santé in 2021, which granted increases for hospital nurses, but did not upgrade the liberals. “It has been fifteen years since nursing medical procedures have been upgraded, and as inflation is very high, practices are not coping, and we want to alert the government”she explains.

“We did a study last year which said that in five years, 58% of practices were going to close”alerts the co-president of the Angry Liberal Nurses collective, “the emergency is there, and what is certain is that it is accelerating and that the nurses are truly suffering”. “I have two daughters, and I don’t advise them to do this job”she confides.

In terms of timing, the collective was pragmatic, “because it is publicized, and the Olympics are a social marker, so we said to ourselves that indeed, if we threatened not to treat Olympic tourists, it was going to be a big problem for the government”she admits.