The announcement of the French 2026 budget was made, as has become customary, through ‘leaks’ to the press, which served as a way of gauging reactions. It went on throughout the summer, some of the measures tested this way being truly staggering. The Bayrou government is effectively proposing a budget that amounts to social assault. It includes, among other things:
- The abolition of two public holidays without compensation, including May 8th, commemorating, should we remind the Prime Minister, the surrender of the Nazi regime;
- The lengthening of the waiting period for sick leave, even though the health consequences of the coronavirus pandemic remain poorly understood yet entirely tangible (see what even liberal think tanks (🇫🇷) have to say on the matter);
- Let us not forget that the lack of healthcare is very much linked to even more serious consequences: it is not only a setback in terms of rights, but also a real attack on workers’ health.
- New attacks on the unemployment insurance system, with the government’s sole aim being to remove people from the lists, in order to no longer pay them benefits nor include them in the official figures, rather than to solve this supposed ‘problem’;
- The plan for a ‘blank year’ for the state budget, i․e. a freeze of all budgets and social benefits, resulting in:
- A decline in the resources of our already severely bled dry healthcare system;
- A drop in the education budget, already battered by numerous successive governments;
- A rollback on culture, on the environment, on all the necessary allowances to maintain a decent life for everyone;
- But of course, an effort purely focused on military budgets (the only future prospects for a government in dire straits?).
An assault implies an agressor, and its victims. Here, the target is clear: it is the working class. People with disabilities, immigrants with or without papers, and workers, salaried or otherwise. These are the people who produce real value in the economy, unlike the idle class: major shareholders who mostly inherit their position and know nothing else but to grow their capital, to ensure a head start for their offspring and spare a few crumbs for their lackeys.
Our rulers choose to persecute the poor, the unemployed and the sick – sick with diseases that the state allows to proliferate. But more generally, ‘the French’ are accused of being responsible for the debt… while the idle rich are suspiciously absent from the efforts requested from the rest of the population, and spoiled with €211 billion in public funds going to businesses (🇫🇷), much of it without any real or verifiable quid pro quo…
What about the video game industry?
Our industry is not isolated from the rest of the economy. We too are proletarians, and we too contribute to an economy that each year pays us back a little less of the value we create. Video game workers massively mobilised this year during the video game general strike, during which we already described how our industry is being ruined by managers and bosses more interested in short-term profits, at any cost, than in workers’ health and the fair distribution of wealth.
As a thank you for their efforts, workers are being laid off. We also had to support our comrades at Don’t Nod facing an unprecedented redundancy plan in the French video game industry. In so many other companies, ‘social dialogue’ boils down to a chilling monologue, as is the case at Virtuos where conflict is rife, in a highly successful company that yet still dares to sack employees.
As for business support, the industry is not lacking since, in addition to benefiting from the Research Tax Credit (CIR), video games companies also have their own system, the Video Game Tax Credit (CIJV). The latter was pretty much all the industry executives talked about (🇫🇷) during their hearing by the French Parliament last March.
What can we do?
Faced with this negligence on the part of these so-called leaders, who only want this title to get power over others, whether in government or in business, we must show that we are rising up. Not only against unfair measures such as this indecent budget, not only to defend social gains such as social security and, more broadly, the French welfare model, but also to conquer new rights and a dignified life.
The current model has run its course and, in its final gasp, wants to take everything away from us. It is up to us all to take back what has always belonged to us: control of our own destinies.
As such, the STJV calls not only for workers to join the protests on September 10, a date which arose from a citizen initiative that we enthusiastically support, and on September 18, called by all national unions, but also for them to take part in the many actions that will take place in between and afterwards. Therefore, the Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo is calling for a strike in the video game industry from September 10 to September 18.
This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a video game publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company – whatever their position or status and whatever their company’s area of activity (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esports, online content creation, etc.) – as well as to all teachers working in private schools in video game-related courses. As this is a national strike call, no action is necessary to go on strike: just don’t go to work.
As we said on May Day : we make, we produce, we decide!