Its also SNCF, which less than a year ago basically threatened to go on strike during these olympic games unless they got an exception to the retirement age reform (exception which they got). CGT-Cheminots (which is the main union) is the most despicable railworkers union in the world.
Think what you want about cheminots, but one thing they all love and will never attack is railway infrastructure.
SNCF may be a shitty company (mainly because it have been voluntary sabotaged by governments) but the people making those thousands of trains run everyday all over the country are almost the most passionate workers you could imagine.
Yes they do have revendications, yes, they are good at striking, but they’ll never destroy the hardware and infrastructure they love and defend.
Mainly because they respect it (railway is working because thousands people are working together to make it work) and also because of safety reasons : SNCF is one of the safest train network in the world because the cheminot culture puts safety on top of any other preoccupations.
They’ll never harm infrastructure and never, never ever in a coordinated way.
Also, when you criticize cheminots and SNCF, which I agree are far from perfect corporation and company and deserves criticism, don’t forget to look at the rest of the world and you’ll discover that most countries in the world would love to have our train network. It’s easy to brag about having imperfect things but it’s also easy to forget that at least we have them.
>people making those thousands of trains run everyday all over the country are almost the most passionate workers you could imagine.
I would probably also be really passionate about all the treasures I amassed by successfully threatening to strike at opportune moments. France is lucky EDF workers at nuclear plants or other critical infrastructure aren't so "passionate".
>They’ll never harm infrastructure and never, never ever in a coordinated way.
I mean, given the sort of attacks that happened, you can already be pretty certain that whoever did them had very good inside information about how the network works.
No. Pjerem obviously knows cheminots - they worship rail infrastructure. Labour conflicts involving cheminots are often brutal, but harming the rail infrastructure is a taboo never transgressed.
In general, in labour conflicts across any industry, destroying the very instruments that provide legitimate power as a worker is so stupid that it is just not done.
I would love to think like you, but one of the legacies of Martinez(and now Binet) is that CGT is now so openly political in terms of higher ups that such things can be outsourced to some left wing militias.
Not suggesting Figaro is unbiased, but they are already reporting possible left wing involvement:
