Trade unions have called a nationwide strike for Thursday, with teachers, railway workers and private sector employees expected to join students in blockades, in a convergence that organisers hope will turn a school dispute into a national political question. Students plan a new day of blockades on Thursday, after blockading dozens of high schools on Tuesday, and unions have called for a cross sector day of action on purchasing power, bringing together workers whose grievances differ in detail but share a theme: the high cost of living and inadequate public services.
The strike’s composition matters. Teachers bring the education dispute into the workplace, because they face the same classroom conditions students protest about, and because they must handle the grading consequences of blockades. Railway workers bring transport disruption, which makes a strike visible beyond the school gates and affects commuters directly. Private sector employees bring the purchasing power argument into workplaces where wages have not kept pace with prices. Together, those groups can create a day of action that is harder for the government to dismiss as a student-only protest.
A movement that widened in October
The movement widened in October from a school dispute that began in mid September into a broader protest that drew about 550,000 demonstrators on 17 October, about 410,000 on 24 October and about 320,000 on 31 October on official counts. Thursday is the first weekday test of that wider movement, because weekday strikes disrupt the economy in a way weekend marches do not. A large Thursday turnout would show the movement can move from weekend protest to weekday economic pressure, which is a stronger form of leverage.
The school blockade reporting on Tuesday notes that unions prepared for a nationwide strike later in the week, with students planning blockades on Thursday as part of that action. It also notes that the government has announced reforms, including changes to Parcoursup, but that student unions say those steps do not meet the scale of the problem. Thursday will therefore test both the movement’s strength and the government’s concessions.
What Thursday will decide
If Thursday is large, the government will face pressure to offer more substantive concessions on wages, on education investment, and on Parcoursup, ahead of a presidential election in less than six months. If Thursday is small, the government may argue that its reforms are working and that the movement’s peak has passed. Either way, Thursday is not the end of the dispute, but it is the next chapter, and it will shape how both sides approach the weeks that follow.
