(Bloomberg) -- Unions will organize “massive” protests against changes to France’s unemployment insurance, CGT union head Philippe Martinez said on Friday.
President Emmanuel Macron’s government this week presented measures that will reduce access to unemployment benefits, impose penalties on companies that rely on short-term contracts, and increase job training.
While the government insists it’s a balanced package that will reduce unemployment, unions have said it treats the unemployed as fraudsters.
“They want to push people who are out of work to take whatever job comes up, even bad ones,” Martinez said on France2 television. “It’s the Anglo-Saxon idea of mini jobs. No one is unemployed by choice.”
Martinez said he’s working with other unions to discuss how to respond after the summer holidays. “It requires a massive response, at the same level as the anger out there,” he said.
The CGT competes with the more moderate CFDT as the country’s largest union. Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT, said on June 18 when the measures were presented that his union was “extremely angry.”
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