School students have been protesting in France for several weeks, as part of an international wave of discontent that spread from Albania, to Serbia, to Italy…

In France, groups of workers got involved in the movement. Health workers organised themselves independently. Below you can find minutes of a general assembly and a leaflet about how health workers can support protestors against police repression… 

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Minutes of the General Assembly of Healthcare Workers in Struggle, a larger town in the south of France, 19th of October 2026

Summary of events of the 17th of October:

– We saw a procession of healthcare workers comprising 50 to 80 people within the demo, with further healthcare workers scattered throughout the march. There was also a procession of healthcare workers in Paris.

– Healthcare workers were identified by secondary school pupils as one of the professional groups to be mobilised as part of their ongoing struggle at the latest inter-school coordination meeting. 

– There was a massive repression with a record number of arrests and the death of a street medic in Paris.

Demands adopted:

– Equal treatment for all regarding working hours and pay:

• Compliance with European standards on maximum working hours
• Abolition of the fee-for-service / DRG system and the introduction of salaried employment for all healthcare professionals, including those qualified abroad
• Reduction in pay gaps between different healthcare professions, or even a single pay scale
• No subcontracting
• Withdrawal of funding from private organisations that do not comply with these rules

– Mass recruitment into the public sector for all healthcare professions, particularly nurses and school and university psychologists

– Reduction in working hours

– Management of healthcare facilities by care staff in collaboration with service users, with part of their working hours dedicated to this

– 100 per cent National Health Insurance cover for everyone, including foreign nationals, which implies a review of the rates and profit margins for certain treatments or products, particularly medicines

– Regarding sick leave:

• Removal of the waiting period before people get sick-leave payment
• Option to take short periods of sick leave without a doctor’s consultation (e.g. in the case of gastroenteritis)
• Sick leave due to menstruation
• Sick leave due to hot weather conditions

– Guidelines on the use of AI in healthcare

 

Health worker leaflet against police repression

The ongoing high school blockades and demonstrations against the high cost of living reject the austerity budgets imposed by the government; hospitals are the first to bear the full brunt of all this market-driven economy. Whilst it gets harder to go on strike, there are many ways to show and invent forms of active solidarity!

Let us not forget that:

• the police have no right to request information on A&E admissions, identities and injuries of patients without a court order
• doctors can declare patients unfit to be questioned by the police in their hospital room, and that the reason for this unfitness is protected by medical confidentiality
• patients have the right to object to the exchange and sharing of information concerning them

Let’s all a strike against data profiling!

Healthcare is a right – Collaboration is a choice