PARIS — Railway workers and air traffic controllers led strikes across France on Thursday, opening a bitter showdown over labor overhauls sought by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The strikes — which are disrupting travel across the country, as well as transatlantic flights — signal a critical test for Macron as his government seeks to challenge France’s tightly controlled public-sector labor markets and stimulate a stagnant economy.
Macron, a 40-year-old former investment banker, faced only minimal resistance last fall to the first wave of workplace changes, which included broader rules to hire and fire employees.
But France’s powerful public sector, which employs more than 5 million people, is putting its foot down against the next stage: proposals to cut 120,000 public-sector jobs, hire more contract workers and slash budgets across the board.
Rail workers planned to go for the jugular with a “rolling” protest: a two-day strike every three days, causing major upheaval to a transport system that handles millions of passengers every day.
Many high-speed trains — including the renowned TGV service — were canceled between Paris and other French cities in Thursday’s opening salvo. Commuter train service within the capital was also suspended. And the Eurostar, connecting Paris with London, canceled some runs through the English Channel tunnel.
Meanwhile, striking air traffic controllers forced the grounding of many short-haul flights at the Paris-area airports of Orly, Beauvais and Charles de Gaulle. Air travel disruption is expected to worsen Friday. Air France said that 30 percent of long-haul flights would be affected, as would 20 percent of short-haul flights.
Teachers, nurses and other workers also joined the strike. Some schools across the country were forced to close.
So far, Macron has been spared the kind of devastating strikes that have unraveled previous French governments.
The public-sector plans — which still need parliamentary approval — may prove to be a different story.
Macron seeks to forge ahead with these changes without the same level of calculated exchange with labor leaders as he engaged in ahead of the first round of labor revisions.
Elisabeth Borne, Macron’s transport minister, defended the labor plans as crucial to ensure the strength and survival of France’s state-owned railway company.
“This is a necessary, indispensable reform,” Borne said, appearing on France’s BFM TV on Thursday. “My hope is not a test of strength; my hope is for negotiations.”
But these changes — particularly with regard to the railways — strike at the heart of a system that has long been a model of the French state’s collective commitments, both to transport and to those who run it.
Political scientists see this as a watershed moment that could determine the future of the French welfare system in a time when Macron has already succeeded in bringing France slightly closer to Anglo-American visions of the state.
