Lyon police file strike motion after pay rises not given to all officers

Two unions representing police officers in Lyon have filed a joint strike motion following a dispute about pay and recruitment issues. 

The FO and CFTC unions have called on officers to strike from this weekend up until November 14 – the date of a future meeting on the issue – in Lyon and the major Villeurbanne suburb of the city.

Minimum service rules mean there wil still be a police presence in the city. 

The motion comes following the announcement of a new pay structure that sees only some officers receiving a raise. 

“There are going to be substantial increases for members of the senior hierarchy, while other officers, about a third, will get nothing,” said FO delegate Bertrand Debeaux to Le Figaro.

“I'm not saying that the first increases are unjustified, but that everyone should be getting raises,” he added.

The strike may still be averted, as the unions are in ‘constructive’ discussions with the city over the issue, but officers rejected the most recent offer from the mairie and are to submit a counter proposal. 

Firefighters in the city have recently been on strike over similar issues. 

Read more: Firefighter strike: call for more protests after Lyon ring road and station blocked

Lack of officers 

Salary negotiations are coming in light of the removal of a cap on police officer pay in Lyon. 

The national cap is still in place in many places in France, and has affected the recruitment of officers in major urban areas.

“Officers who have reached the salary ceiling, even though they are involved in increasingly serious public order offences,” are leaving the force in these areas, said Mr Debeaux. 

“[They] are saying to themselves: ‘Why not go to a neighbouring municipality with an easier job for a similar salary? What's going to make these officers stay?” he added. 

Even though the cap is now being removed in Lyon, the knock-on effect from the policy being in effect for many years is a shortage of office.

The lack of available officers is exhausting workers and potentially leading to mistakes from overwhelmed officers.

Lyon’s council said they allocated €550,000 to police officer pay rises in 2022, the first of its kind in 10 years, but that they may be limited in what they can offer again based on national restrictions. 

“The reality is that the economic context for local authorities is complicated,” a source close to the mairie said. 

“We don't know what the state is going to do to us [in terms of annual budgets] even though our accounts are perfectly managed. For a city like Lyon, we're talking about [changes of] €20 to €25 million. That's the budget for our municipal police,” the source added.

Read more: Strikes in France in October 2024 and how you may be impacted