French Health Workers Protest Over Pay Ahead Of Polls

Health workers demonstrated in cities across France on Tuesday to demand higher pay and more staff for services stretched to breaking point, just days before the country votes in parliamentary elections.
Although recently re-elected, President Emmanuel Macron has ordered a probe into which emergency units need immediate help with people in the sector warning there is no time to lose.
Head of the CGT union in eastern city Strasbourg Pierre Wach, said not a single department is spared, and that public hospitals are in the process of dying for lack of resources.
Protests began at hospitals in the morning Tuesday and continued at the health ministry in Paris in the afternoon, where staff, some wearing white medical coats, brandished placards with messages such as “Hire more and pay us more, it’s urgent!”.
Casualty workers’ group Samu-Urgences de France found in a May survey that at least 120 accident and emergency departments nationwide had already cut back on work or were preparing to do so after years of Covid-19 strain.
Macron told regional newspapers Friday that his review, led by the group’s chief Francois Braun, would identify “where there is need, emergency department by emergency department, ambulance service by ambulance service, region by region”.
But opposition politicians and unions have accused him of playing for time until after the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 — as some polls show the president’s absolute majority could be at risk.
Some emergency workers have warned that a summer heatwave, which in past years has proved deadly for elderly people, or a new flare-up of Covid could push hospitals into chaos.