Four strikes in less than three months. German railway workers keep a pace that has nothing to envy of their French counterparts. This Wednesday, they are even embarking on a record strike which is expected to last six days, paralyzing freight throughout Europe. An event in a country usually renowned for the quality of its social dialogue. Really ? At the beginning of January, farmers attacked a ferry on which the Minister of the Economy was. In previous months, wage negotiations in industry and services have also been tense.
And outside the social spectrum, Germans also found themselves in their millions in the streets this weekend to demonstrate against the far right. How to explain this social conflagration? Why is this movement exceptional? Between strikes, demonstrations and angry unions, are the Germans the new French, reputed to be the champions of mobilization? 20 minutes takes stock with Jacques-Pierre Gougeon, university professor of contemporary history and director of the Germany Observatory at IRIS, author of Germany, a challenge for Europepublished by Eyrolles.
Why is Germany on fire socially?
Whether it is train drivers, farmers or, in another register, demonstrators against the extreme right, the German population seems to be on edge lately. And if the triggers are different, there is “a subject which concerns the entire German population, it is the ecological transition”, explains Jacques-Pierre Gougeon. Spearheading the policy of Olaf Scholz, who promised that “the State would compensate for numerous efforts on heating or diesel”, the ministry took a hit to the wallet.
“The Constitutional Court ruled that the government had engaged in budgetary sleight of hand,” summarizes the German civilization specialist. And it’s an envelope of 60 billion euros, previously planned for the fight against Covid, which has vanished. “And a whole series of aid to be re-examined”, in a context already weighed down by the war in Ukraine and rising prices. Companies have cut jobs, causing unemployment to rise again for the first time in years, others are threatening to outsource. “The context is much more flammable than six months ago”, and “the German economic model is weakened overall”. Added to this is “the impression that the government is indecisive”, with members of a coalition pulling in three different directions, and all of Germany is afraid of finding itself left behind.
How is the current movement exceptional?
“There is no strike culture in Germany,” confirms Jacques-Pierre Gougeon. Across the Rhine, tradition dictates that we discuss and negotiate until exhaustion. Taking to the streets is “the last resort”. Moreover, the six-day strike by Deutsche Bahn (DB) did not come out of nowhere. “There had already been small strikes lasting a day or two” in November, but management had not given up. So, it’s a “hard strike”, with “20,000 freight trains immobilized every day” in Europe, he explains.
Even more sensitive was the attack launched by farmers on Thursday January 4 on a ferry on which Robert Habeck, the environmentalist Minister of the Economy, was a passenger. If the ferry was able to turn around in time, such a level of violence is unprecedented in Germany, and has aroused indignation even in the farmers’ federation. “It’s not entirely new, but we haven’t had this image of Germany since the 1980s,” moderates the historian, referring to the protests against the installation of American rockets in Germany in the last years of the Cold War.
Can the Germans transform themselves into French-style strike professionals?
To all these elements about the current context, we must add a basic trend. Before the Covid-19 crisis, the Climate March movement found a significant echo in Germany, which still massively uses coal to produce its electricity. In these demonstrations, behind the example of Greta Thunberg, “a more protest culture has developed, which spills over into the social field”. And if young people were at the forefront of these demonstrations, the profile of the striking DB train drivers has nothing to do with it. “Youth has liberated this mode of action,” believes Jacques-Pierre Gougeon.
From there to consider an anchoring in Germanic habits? “There is still a social tradition” of dialogue to be respected, tempers the director of the Germany Observatory. And it is not because the youth of today walk that those of tomorrow will too. “There were large protest marches against nuclear power, young people were on the roads” in the 1970s. Since then, not much. And when we put the magnifying glass on the points of agitation in German society, “the DB is quite specific”. As for the refusal of the extreme right, it is difficult not to read in it the remains of a national history. “But among farmers, there is something in common at European level. » We’re not yet grilling currywurst on a merguez-style rolling barbecue…