PARIS (Dispatches) -- It started several weeks ago at refineries. Then it spread to nuclear plants. And finally, on Tuesday, railway workers, some teachers and even high school students across France joined a snowballing strike that has become the biggest test so far of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term.
The widening strike came on the heels of a large march against rising costs of living held in Paris on Sunday and increases pressure on Macon’s government, which is already embattled in parliament, where opposition parties are refusing to pass the budget.
Macron is now struggling to mollify anger on three different fronts — in factories, on the streets and in parliament — before it coalesces into a major episode of social unrest. That could threaten his agenda, including plans for a contentious pensions overhaul, as he seeks a direction for his new term.
The original strikes at refineries across the country have left more than a quarter of the pumps across the country fully or partly dry. While Macron promised the situation would return to normal this week, with his government issuing back-to-work orders, lines at gas stations around Paris continued on Tuesday, adding to the frustration among drivers and other commuters.
Left-wing politicians and striking union leaders called for mass mobilization and painted the rising sentiment in the country as an “autumn of discontent”.
Many high school students also joined the protest, with some in Paris blockading the entrance of their schools. Students at the Hélène Boucher high school, in the east of the capital, barricaded themselves behind large green garbage cans and were holding signs denouncing recent changes in education policy, warning that students’ lives had become more precarious, or protesting police violence.
“More teachers, less cops!” they chanted Tuesday morning.
The strike on Tuesday — which organizers planned to coalesce into a large march in Paris — coincided with efforts this week by Macron’s government to get its budget through parliament. The last legislative elections in June left Macron short of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of parliament.
Legislators are threatening to vote down the spending bill. So Macron’s government is likely to use special constitutional powers to push it through without a vote. Olivier Véran, the government’s spokesman, said it would “probably” do so on Wednesday.
Étienne Ollion, a sociologist at the Polytechnique engineering school who specializes in French parliamentary life, said the mechanism, allowed under Article 49.3 of France’s 1958 Constitution, was “a bit of an authoritarian measure.” Though the mechanism had been used 60 times since its introduction, he said, Macron’s lack of a parliamentary majority and the current climate of social unrest could make it a more delicate move.
“It could have an effect on the mobilizations,” Ollion said, referring to the strikes and protests, adding that protesters might see such a move as “an attempt to avoid confronting the reality of the situation, that is one of political difficulties.”
Using these constitutional powers would also allow members of the opposition to put forward no-confidence motions, which leftist and far-right groups in parliament have already promised to do.
Similar protests have erupted around Europe in recent months as people complain about the impact

of inflation, causing disruptions like canceled flights and trains. Thousands protested in Prague twice last month partly about high energy prices, airline workers have gone on strike in places like Germany and Sweden for higher pay as inflation rises. In the UK, everyone from nurses to rail employees have walked off the job to demand their wages keep pace with the rising cost of living.
Tuesday’s protests in France come after the left-wing CGT union rejected a deal over a pay increase that oil giant TotalEnergies struck with two other unions Friday.
Strikers demanded higher wages from the windfall profits of energy companies that have seen high oil and gas prices as Russia’s war in Ukraine aggravates an energy crisis.
But the CGT rejected the deal, holding out for a 10% pay rise and called for continuing the protests.
Long lines of cars have been seen for weeks across France as drivers waited — sometimes for hours — to fill up. Many gas stations have temporarily closed while awaiting deliveries.
Inflation has risen around the world as economies rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic and then got worse as the Ukraine war sent food and fuel prices soaring.
French inflation has hit 6.2%, according to the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat. In comparison, Estonia saw consumer prices soar 24% last month from a year earlier, while the Netherlands’ rate was 17% and the eurozone as a whole was 10%.