Internal war is declared within Marseille of the Territorial Workers’ Force (FO), which brings together nearly 3,500 members and which for almost twenty-five years has brought together, under the same flag, the agents of the city of Marseille and the of Aix- Metropolis of Marseille Provence (AMP). It is not the first attack against the general secretary, Patrick Rué, head of the union since 2012. But this time, the revolt, which has been brewing for several months, publicly shakes a man who has just passed the age of 70. .
On Wednesday, September 25, nearly 200 AMP agents gathered at the foot of the La Marseillaise tower, which houses the offices of the public inter-municipal cooperation establishment. This improvised general assembly validated the creation of an autonomous union section in the metropolis and ratified its statutes. Carine Riquier Pinet, until then FO delegate in the highways department, was chosen to lead it.
After this coup, the leaders of this new section, all former territorial executives of the FO, presented the statutes of their structure to the administrative police and the departmental union (UD) Force Ouvrière des Bouches-du-Rhône. “ This is the first step. Either the UD validates the creation of our union and therefore the split with the municipal unions, or it takes the matter to the conflict commission.”, projects himself Mme Riquier-Pinet. “We are fed up with internal practices and being under the control of Patrick Rué, she denounces. He is 70 years old, has been retired for three years and can no longer be part of any joint body… However, he has just been re-elected for four years as regional secretary of the Territorials. »
“They are not the same demands”
For her, as for her followers, the FO’s loss of influence in the metropolis (the union fell to 31% of the vote during the last elections in 2022, leaving the FSU to gain more seats) owes a lot to its leaders. “They only deal with the city, but the metropolis brings together 92 municipalities: we do not have the same demands or the same expectations. If we don’t contact the agents again, we will continue to lose members.”M alertme Riquier-Pinet.
In Marseille, the Territorial FOs remain an essential union force. Nearly all successive mayors, from Gaston Defferre (Socialist Party, 1953-1986) to Jean-Claude Gaudin (Les Républicains, LR, 1995-2020), forged what was long called a “ co-management » with the different majorities. To avoid social movements, the councilors prioritized the demands of Force Ouvrière, promoting the union’s members in the organizational chart of the city and then the metropolis. In 2000, when the future AMP Marseille-Provence-Métropole was created, resulting in transfers of powers and personnel, the City section decided to supervise this new public establishment.
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