May 1 bill: unions denounce “a breach that is still unacceptable”

All eight trade union organizations denounced this Tuesday the government bill authorizing artisanal bakeries and florists to have their employees work on May 1, before its examination in the Senate from June 16.

“Thanks to our union alerts and our mobilizations, the bill initially envisaged to largely allow companies to put employees to work on May 1st had to be abandoned,” recall the CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires and FSU unions regarding the bill proposed in April by Gabriel Attal, former Prime Minister and leader of the Renaissance party, which the government had given up supporting.

“After the Minister of Labor indicated that the current law on May 1st would not be modified, the Prime Minister finally rushed to table a new bill, confirming the obstinacy to respond to the slightest of employers’ demands and to attack the rights of employees, until the only day completely protected from work and its subordination,” regret the organizations.

According to the unions, “the relentless pursuit of May 1 continues on June 16 in the Senate, after an extremely worrying episode on May 1, 2026 where the executive crossed a new threshold by supporting, if not inciting, infractions of the law, in defiance of the separation of powers, the constitutive principle of any democracy.”

While the law has not yet changed, the government had assured artisan bakers and florists who had their employees work on May 1 this year that they would not have to pay a fine in the event of an inspection if they paid them double and their employees were willing.

Questioning the exceptionality of this day

For the unions, “the opening of the exception to the principle of paid rest on May 1 constitutes a first breach, calling into question the exceptional nature of this day: each time a principle is started, the exceptions gradually extend until they become the rule”.

“Sunday work is an illuminating illustration of this, and, once work on this day is generalized, the increases are no longer necessary,” explains the press release.

May 1 is the only day of the year when employees who work because the activity cannot be stopped (hospitals, nursing homes, factories whose machines cannot be shut down for a single day, etc.) are paid double.

“May 1 is not a public holiday like any other” for the unions, who recall that this day notably commemorates the shooting of Fourmies, a textile town in the North, on May 1, 1891, when the army bloodily repressed a workers’ demonstration demanding an eight-hour day.