May 1st is a hard-won symbol of workers’ struggle, solidarity, and collective power – a day carved out of history where labour stops, and dignity is affirmed.
Today, that meaning is under attack in France. At this week’s meeting in Nicosia, the ETF Executive Committee expressed its solidarity with our French affiliates and committed to supporting them in defending this fundamental day for workers.
The French government’s push to expand derogations allowing more non-essential sectors to operate on International Workers’ Day is being framed as “voluntary” and incentivized with higher pay. But this narrative is harmful and wrong: there is no true freedom of choice in an unequal power relationship between employer and worker. What is presented as optional quickly becomes expectation, and then norm.
This shift is dangerous for several reasons: First, it divides workers. By individualising the decision to work or not, it weakens collective power and erodes solidarity.
Second, it sets a precedent. Normalising work on May Day in some sectors creates pressure to expand it across others, creating an artificial need for mobility that will justify a more extensive minimal service in public transport, and reinforcing the idea that no day is truly protected.
Third, it undermines the very purpose of May Day: remembrance and mobilisation. This is the one day where workers, by law, can gather, reflect on past struggles, and demonstrate their collective strength. Diluting it weakens both memory and action.
Allowing some to work on May Day is not a neutral adjustment. It is the beginning of a broader normalisation that risks emptying the day of its meaning altogether.
May Day exists because workers fought for it. Preserving it requires that same vigilance.
We stand in solidarity with unions in France resisting these measures and defending not just a date, but the history and rights it represents.