September is likely to be a complicated month on all fronts, from transport to schools and healthcare staff.
The AP-HP strike is mobilizing the 38 hospitals of the Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris against Prime Minister François Bayrou's cost-cutting plan. This large-scale social protest involves 100,000 professionals in 38 hospitals across the Paris region, from nursing staff to administrative and technical teams.
Notice of the strike was given in August, but the movement is not due to start until September 10, when it will converge with an Internet collective's call to blockade the country on that day. The intersyndicale has decided to hold a central AGM on September 5 at 2pm at the Bourse du Travail to coordinate actions.
The date is not chosen at random. On September 8, François Bayrou will commit his government to a vote of confidence in his budget plan before the National Assembly. The unions intend to put pressure on parliamentarians ahead of this crucial deadline.
The unions are firmly opposed to the measures in the Bayrou plan that directly affect public health. Among the major points of contention are the doubling of the annual ceiling on medical deductibles from 50 to 100 euros per insured person, and the abolition of two public holidays.
"There's a real sense of anger," says Nathalie Marchand, General Secretary of the AP-HP's CGT union, in the face of these budget cuts. The unions also point to an unprecedented deterioration in working conditions: mobility, flexibility, non-compliance with schedules imposed on departments.
Hospital staff are also denouncing the extension of outpatient care and the non-replacement of one hospital civil servant in three. For Nathalie Marchand, "we are already owed more than two million unpaid hours", a situation that illustrates the chronic difficulties of the sector.
For the moment, therefore, there's no impact on hospitals in the Paris region, since the strike only begins on September 10. However, an"unlimited strike" is envisaged, likely to mark a historic turning point for the future of public hospitals.
The unions are calling on patients to support this mobilization, considering that several measures aimed at the healthcare sector directly concern them. The increase in medical deductibles and the reform of long-term illnesses (ALD) will have a direct impact on users' out-of-pocket expenses.
This strike is part of a wider context of social protest. The movement could extend beyond the hospital sector, with other sectors such as energy and transport also joining in. The stated aim of the "Les Essentiels" collective is to paralyze the whole of France, in order to force the executive to back down, and if possible obtain the dissolution of the Bayrou government.
The AP-HP, France's leading hospital grouping, finds itself at the heart of a major political tug-of-war between the government and healthcare professionals, in a particularly tense budgetary context.
