bakers, artists, expatriates … They launch strike funds to “make anger visible”

“Our strength is that we see people”

Some regulars are very generous, like Jean-Luc, also retired. “I give a ticket, otherwise I don’t give anything, he says, depositing 50 euros in the glass box, which is far from being his first donation, specifies Thi-Hang. You know when you’re retired, you can’t say ‘we’re on strike’. What do you want me to do?”

“I say to myself, who pays me for my retirement? It’s them, it’s you. I can try to give you back a little when you go on strike! Otherwise, we stay in our armchair, our sofa and then it’s All”.

Jean-Claude, retired from the North

at franceinfo

Four other bakeries in the North have joined the initiative called “And always the leavened bread”. Martin, a baker and companion of Thi-Hang, hopes to convince other independents: “What we said to ourselves is that our strength in this is that we see people. Any merchant, any craftsman who wants to support the movement can either take part in the cash register directly, either put one on his counter, offer people to participate, be a collection point, if ever he or she is not able to go on strike, says to himself that it will be useless, where does not have the means also because the problem as a self-employed person is that you can live putting the company in danger”.

The kitty, which displays more than 1,250 euros this Thursday morning, will be donated to the Solidarity Fund, an interprofessional strike fund created in 2016 and relaunched since the start of the mobilization against the pension reform. The money is regularly redistributed to strikers, whether unionized or not and whatever their sector of activity.

Mobilize the “atomized, depoliticized” artistic community

It is also via the site caisse-solidarite.fr, that the street-artist Nô, based in Cahors (Lot), created a strike fund, supplemented by creators like him. “I also had a feeling of frustration in the demonstrations or in seeing the indifference, the total contempt of the government in the face of social protest”, tells this follower of the stencil who is located in “the radical left, of libertarian anarchist influence”. “Supporting the strike fund allows you to have an action that leads to a concrete result, the collection of money”slip Noh .

“From a strategic point of view, it helps sectors to hold on, transport, refineries, garbage collectors. Because we know very well that on the whole, on the economic level, it is they who can really make the difference. “

Nô, street-artist based in Cahors

at franceinfo

Nearly 160 artists responded to his call in several large cities such as Paris, Nantes, Marseille, Toulon or Lyon. Everyone posts a photo of one or more works on Instagram with the hashtag #soutiendesartistesauxgrévistes, accompanied by a sort of manifesto. The buyer and the creator “agree on the price”, he explains. Online payment is paid directly to the strike fund and the work sent by post to the home of the purchaser (and at the expense of its creator).

Of the 200 paintings, drawings, frescoes put up for sale, around 80 found buyers for a total of more than 5,000 euros collected. “It’s not huge, when you look at the bass drums, concedes No, but the bass drums are fed by the small drums. And then, he continues, beyond the number, it’s not just the money, there’s also a symbolic dimension to it. It’s trying to show that no one wants reform, neither artists nor anyone. Make visible the anger, the rage that emanates from all parts of society, including artists.”

The artist, who had taken part in the movement of “yellow vests”, is also pleased to have succeeded in mobilizing in the middle of street art, “generally quite depoliticized or rather apolitical”. “Among the artists and among the public too, there were quite a few who did not necessarily know what a strike fund was, he observes. It was a way of bringing people who would not have spontaneously taken part in this kind of action, to get involved. I am thinking of an example: there is a person who is a nurse in Dunkirk and who is requisitioned. She can’t go on strike and would say, ‘Yes, for me, it’s a way of supporting the movement'”.

In Madrid, 49.3 “gave mobilization a boost”

More than 800 km south of Cahors, another strike fund is trying to unite employees who “cannot strike because of their status, but still wanted to support the social movement”, explains Pablo Quintana, a Frenchman who has lived in Spain for over 20 years. This engineer is one of the organizers of the kitty “France Spain Solidarity Strike Pensions”, also hosted on the caisse-solidaire.fr website.

This is a small group of expatriates, “seconded French civil servants, employees under local contract of French institutions, French employees in the private sector and also self-employed workers”, determined to raise funds for the French strikers.

But “to reach the French community in Spain”is not easy, deplores Pablo Quintana, who has been elected adviser to French people living abroad since 2021. On the one hand because this community ” is scattered all over Spain“; and on the other hand, because she “perceives events in France as distant”. The 1,358 euros collected so far have therefore been paid mainly by ” people who are already aware of the issue of pension reform because they have family in France, because they aspire to return to France in the more or less near future. And also people who have, from the start, the militant fiber.