Why the French Strikes Are Really About Trust: What Every Leader Should Learn from Them

France holds a special place in my heart, and that’s why I am always interested to stay up with what happens there. Colleagues, business, and good friends make it so. And may I add, my concerns about what is happening in the world today is not only confined to France – they know no boundaries. But I want to touch on France in this article because I feel it is very relevant. 

If you walk the boulevards of Paris today, unfortunately you may pass the echoes of yet another protest. Students, sanitation workers, railway staff, and retirees have marched across French cities in recent months, their banners not just a protest against pension reforms, but a cry, I think, of deeper disillusionment: "You didn't listen."

The strikes across France in 2023 and 2024 began, ostensibly, over President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul – raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. But dig deeper, and you uncover something far more profound than numbers on a ledger. This wasn’t just a policy disagreement; it was a rupture in trust. And for leaders everywhere, from government cabinets to corporate boardrooms, it offers a masterclass in the emotional undercurrents of systemic change.

Because real change is never about what’s written on paper. It's about what people feel. Feel is the operative word. And when people feel unheard, unseen, or unvalued, resistance isn't a reaction. It becomes a revolution.

The Neuroscience of Resistance: Why People Don’t Just “Get on Board”.

One of the most common leadership blind spots during change initiatives is underestimating the role of the brain’s threat response. Neuroscience tells us that change – even positive change – activates the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for our fight-flight-freeze instincts. When leaders roll out reforms without meaningfully involving the people affected, the emotional brain interprets this as a threat to stability, identity, and autonomy.

In France, the proposed pension reforms bypassed traditional consensus-building methods and were pushed through using a constitutional mechanism that allowed the government to sidestep parliamentary debate. That procedural move lit a fire under already smouldering distrust. It was like a stab in the heart. The message people received was not "We are restructuring for sustainability," but more like, "We don't care what you think."

At scale, this isn’t just about neurons or hormones – it's about collective emotional contagion. When enough people feel ignored, those individual amygdala responses combine as a whole into mass mobilization. And that can be terrifying with dramatic consequences.

When Good Intentions Break Trust.

Most leaders don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “How can I alienate my people today?” And you certainly don’t, I’m sure. But here’s the thing, even well-intentioned change can fracture trust when empathy is sacrificed for expediency. And unfortunately, this has become somewhat of a “norm”.

Macron argued that the pension reform was necessary to maintain fiscal health and avoid national debt spirals. From a technocratic perspective, he may have been right. But leadership is not a purely intellectual exercise. It's emotional. And every spreadsheet-driven solution must pass through a human filter: "Do I trust you to decide this for me?"

Here lies the paradox of leadership in transformation: You can be right on paper, and you can still lose your people. 

In France, years of socioeconomic tension, the Yellow Vest movement, and growing wealth disparities all compounded into a cultural climate that was ripe for pushback. And that’s exactly what transpired.

I have friends in locations across France who share this view. Leaders need to slow down and feel. Impossible? Some of you might say yes. I say no. It does take effort, I’ll grant you that, and it takes being more in tune with what it is to be human and knowing why this is vital. But it’s not impossible. It takes being real and being genuine. 

Trust: The Unseen Infrastructure of Any Organization.

Trust is not a soft concept. It is the infrastructure on which agility, innovation, and resilience are built. And once it’s broken, no amount of strategic messaging or "change champions" can plug the hole. You’ve got a sinking ship.

In organizations, trust fractures when leaders:

• Make decisions in isolation and announce them as done deals.

• Downplay or dismiss emotional reactions to change.

• Fail to acknowledge past mistakes or institutional failures.

• Communicate only during rollout, not during rumination.

The lesson from the French protests is stark: People don't revolt because of change. They revolt because they weren't invited into the conversation about change. Simple.

The Emotional Intelligence Imperative.

Emotional intelligence (EI) isn’t a luxury trait for “nice” managers. It's a survival skill for transformational leadership. And everyone – every leader – on the planet needs it. Leaders with high EI:

• Recognize emotional resistance not as irrationality, but as valid feedback.

• Regulate their own defensiveness when facing dissent.

• Practice active listening without rushing to solutions.

• Display empathy while holding firm boundaries.

Imagine how different the French response might have been if the reforms had been introduced through a series of town halls, stakeholder forums, or public deliberations. 

Imagine if, instead of legal manoeuvring, the administration had centred its rollout around a listening campaign – yes – a listening campaign: "We want to hear from you and understand your fears. Let's shape the future together."

Would the outcome have changed? Perhaps not the policy. But almost certainly the perception. Even the choice of the word “listening” might have had positive effect.

Active Listening in Systemic Change.

One of the most undervalued leadership skills needed during upheaval, is listening, and here I mean, real listening. Not the kind where you're just waiting for your turn to speak and thinking of rebuttals in your head to what you’re hearing, but the kind that goes deeper and communicates: You matter.

In emotionally intelligent organizations, leaders engage in what psychologist Carl Rogers called "empathetic listening." They…

They stay present in discomfort, knowing that defensiveness shuts down dialogue.

Trust is built one conversation at a time. It comes from being empathetic. And during systemic change, every one of those empathetic conversations matters. 

What Global Executives Can Learn from France.

France's protests may feel like a uniquely European phenomenon, steeped in a long history of labour action and civic resistance. But the lessons travel far beyond the Seine and the French people. No country is immune. People exist everywhere.

Here are some take-aways for leaders and executives as a result of the French protests:

1. Respect Is a Precondition for Reform

• You cannot shortcut respect. Even the best-laid plans will fail if people feel dismissed. Every individual can sense when trust isn’t there. Give your teams agency, voice, and genuine involvement.

2. Speed Kills Trust

• Fast decisions are often necessary. But when speed comes at the cost of inclusion, it backfires. Build in time for dialogue. Design rollout strategies that prioritize emotional pacing, not just operational timelines. People are human.

3. History Matters

• People don’t respond to change in a vacuum. They respond in context. What have you done before? What promises were broken? Emotional memory is powerful. Acknowledge it. Don’t forget lessons of the past.

4. Emotion Is Not the Enemy

• Leaders often fear emotional expression because it feels messy or unmanageable. And they think it a sign of weakness others will chastise them for. But emotions are information. If your people are angry, scared, or confused, that's data. Use it. 

5. Empathy Does Not Equal Weakness

• Some executives equate empathy with caving. That’s a myth. Empathy allows you to lead with strength and sensitivity. It creates the conditions for sustainable, not superficial, change. Empathy empowers. It allows you to evolve and to excel.

My Final Thoughts: Trust Is Not Rebuilt in Press Releases.

The French strikes – and indeed all strikes – remind us that leadership is not about being the smartest person in the room. It's about creating rooms where everyone feels their intelligence and experiences matter.

If we want to navigate this age of disruption – from climate change to digital acceleration, from economic uncertainty to sociopolitical unrest – we need leaders who are fluent in more than spreadsheets. We need leaders fluent in human emotion. And that’s a powerful thing.

We need leaders who:

• Pause before they push.

• Invite before they implement.

• Listen before they lead.

Because at the heart of every protest, every walkout, every strategic meeting, every dispute or negotiation, or dramatic change, is a question every leader should be asking:

"Do my people still trust me?"

If the answer is no, it's not the change that failed. 

It's the conversation that never happened.