The CGT warns of union freedoms “in danger” and repression reaching “an unprecedented level”

The CGT union warned on Wednesday of the “dangers” weighing on trade union freedoms. She points to the legal proceedings and discrimination in companies which are increasingly numerous against trade unionists, against a backdrop of the rise of the extreme right.

“It is one minute to midnight, the far right is at the gates of power,” explained the number one of the CGT, Sophie Binet, during a press conference preceding a meeting in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the Paris suburbs. She herself is indicted for comments about bosses.

Legal proceedings and police interventions

The union believes that union repression is reaching “an unprecedented level” in France. He must also soon make public a list of 1,000 CGT unionists “concerned”, by the courts or by their employer, for their union commitment.

He points to the increasingly frequent use of legal proceedings against trade unionists, disproportionate police interventions which “become commonplace” during social movements, and bans on demonstrations. In companies, the CGT reports pressure on trade unionists and dismissals of employees protected by their mandate.

The CGT believes that these developments are favored by “the concentration of media in the hands of a few billionaires which favors the trivialization of reactionary speeches”. The Macron orders of 2017 are also questioned because they weakened social democracy by merging staff representative bodies.

The union is demanding the adoption, before the next presidential election, of a “major law to protect freedoms”. It would have three components, the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the press and the securing of funding for public broadcasting, and, finally, the “protection of trade union freedoms”. Among the measures recommended: the possibility given to prosecutors to immediately decide to dismiss the case when a press law procedure is manifestly unfounded.

A “SLAPP procedure” denounced

Representatives of the Magistrates’ Union and the Human Rights League, as well as former Minister of Justice Jacques Toubon, spoke at the Montreuil meeting, among others. The number one of the CFDT, Marylise Léon, provided her support through a video, while that of the CFE-CGC, François Hommeril, was present.

While Sophie Binet was indicted for “public insult” after having described, in January 2025, the bosses as “rats who jump ship” whose “only objective is the lure of profit”, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) filed a complaint before the International Labor Organization (ILO) to denounce this “SLAPP procedure”, that is to say the recourse to justice to curb the expression of an opinion. “What is happening here with Sophie and what is happening here in France, this is not an isolated case, it is something that we see everywhere in the world,” said the general secretary of the ITUC, Luc Triangle, stressing that unions are the first organizations attacked by authoritarian regimes.

The Ethic employers’ movement filed a complaint after Sophie Binet’s comments about bosses. Indictment is automatic in the event of a complaint for public insult. Ethic “is financed by Pierre-Édouard Stérin, a far-right billionaire who, in his Périclès project, supports associations to multiply SLAPP procedures,” denounces Sophie Binet.

The president of Ethic, Sophie de Menthon, assured the newspaper L’Humanité that she had not received any help from Pierre-Édouard Stérin except “simple financial support for the holding of a conference in 2024”.