Cannes Staffers to Protest Working Conditions at Opening Ceremony

Freelance workers at the Cannes Film Festival, supported by the French labor org Sous les écrans la dèche (Broke Behind the Screens), plan to stage a protest for the second consecutive year at this evening’s glamorous opening ceremony.

Last year, a small group of workers protested against their working conditions, including a rooftop demonstration during the opening night gala. Sous les écrans la dèche, which brings together hundreds of workers at festivals, from projectionists to drivers and caterers, issued a statement saying that those actions yielded negotiations to come up with a new collective agreement that would protect the livelihood of freelance workers at the film and TV festival, but talks froze after six months of discussions, said the org, which was hoping to see an addendum to the unemployment insurance regulations.

France has a unique system that allows freelance workers within the film and TV industries to receive benefits during their unemployment periods. These benefits are only accessible to those who have worked a certain number of hours in the year. But that system has been threatened in recent years after the French government cut the amount paid to workers by half.

“The aim was to define a list of roles eligible for the intermittent worker scheme that could be included in… the unemployment insurance scheme in order to enable our professions to escape the precarious situation created by the 2021 unemployment insurance reforms,” the org wrote in its statement. “We are therefore calling on all workers to mobilise once again because, if we cannot make a living from our professions, what future is there for festivals?”

Celine Petit, a high-ranking CGT official based in Nice, told Variety that the national trade union center was supporting Sous les écrans la dèche and called for as many workers as possible to participate in a watershed moment on opening night. While protests around the Palais have been banned by the mayor of Cannes, a demonstration is being organized at approximately 6:30 p.m., starting near Cannes’ city hall and planning to end on the red carpet. Petit suggested that aside from the protests, more actions could pop up.

Ahead of the festival, organizers sent a memo to all staffers, which detailed guidelines on social media use and dealing with the press, and urged them to maintain a “certain political neutrality in your exchanges with festival-goers.” Despite reports suggesting otherwise, organizers tell Variety that this particular language was not related to Sous les écrans la dèche or other labor-related matters.

Among the movement’s high-profile supporters are French filmmaker Justine Triet and Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, both of whom wore the group’s red pin on the red carpet at their Cannes premieres in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Notably, Kapadia serves on the Cannes competition jury this year.