Public holidays canceled, pensions de-indexed... The entire inter-union launches a petition against the Bayrou plan for 2026

Petitions are all the rage, even though this one wasn't posted on the National Assembly's website, unlike the one against the Duplomb law . A full inter-union body (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, FSU, and Solidaires), as during the mobilization against the 2023 pension reform, launched a call this Tuesday, July 22, to "demand the immediate abandonment" of the measures presented last week by the Prime Minister, including the elimination of two public holidays, a blank year on pensions and social benefits, and a new reform of unemployment insurance.

"The [Bayrou] government has chosen to make workers, those in precarious employment, retirees, and the sick pay," wrote all the unions in a rare joint statement accompanying the petition published on the Change.org website . They denounced the measures as "brutal, unfair, and ineffective," citing "the elimination of two public holidays, [cuts] in public services, the undermining of labor law, yet another reform of unemployment insurance, the freezing of social benefits and the freezing of salaries for civil servants and contract workers, the de-indexation of retirement pensions, the doubling of medical deductibles, the undermining of the fifth week of paid leave..."

The inter-union thus calls for "rejecting this museum of horrors", an expression already used by the general secretary of the CFDT, Marylise Léon , and "to defend together our social model and dignity at work. What we expect is a project that is respectful for the country, bringing hope and justice."

On July 15, the Prime Minister proposed the abolition of two new public holidays, including Easter Monday and May 8, and a further tightening of unemployment insurance rules. "We must work more, the entire nation must work more to produce and […] so that the situation in France improves," he declared.

For the unions, there is "no question of workers, job seekers, young people and retirees still paying the bill, both financially and in terms of even greater flexibility !"

They believe that the government must prioritize "solutions that integrate the highest incomes such as the contribution of companies, " pointing in particular to "211 billion euros of public aid" paid to companies "without transparency, without evaluation" or without objectives "in terms of employment." They also demand "tax justice for high incomes that escape any real contribution."