Watch: Paris Olympics dancers stage protest – and they’re threatening to ruin opening ceremony

Around 200 people mimicked the Black Power-style salute when they stopped dancing during a rehearsal

With fists aloft in a Black Power-style salute, Paris Olympics dancers have staged a protest against “inequality and discrimination” while threatening to strike during the opening ceremony.
The demonstration was captured on video by the banks of the River Seine on Monday during a dress rehearsal for Friday’s big show.
Around 200 young men and women could be seen mimicking the hand gesture made by African-American athletes during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
Cette aprem, lors du filage de la cérémonie d’ouverture au moins 200 danseur•ses (intermittents la plupart) ont refusé de danser, poing levé contre leurs conditions de travail & les inégalités de traitement entre les précaires et les salariés des ballets.Bientôt dans @Mediapart pic.twitter.com/ItTA1c1N9x
Then, the political statement focused on racism in the United States, but this time low pay and poor working conditions in France are the main focus.
It comes as thousands of trade unionists across the country pledge to disrupt the Olympics and Paralympics with strikes and other protests.
“We wanted to show our dissatisfaction,” said a spokesman for France’s Union of Performing Artists (SFA), who said members stopped dancing on Monday “for a few minutes”, with the pledge of more stoppages to come.
The spokesman added: “Dress rehearsals for the ceremony are under way, and we regret to have to announce the filing of a strike notice for the day of the show, on Friday, as well as for the next rehearsals of the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games.”
Those involved in Monday’s action mimicked Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s podium display from 56 years ago.
The pair had won gold and bronze in the 200m sprint and raised black-gloved fists skywards during the playing of the American national anthem.
Hundreds of entertainers are due to take part in the Paris opening ceremony, which will involve dozens of barges full of Olympic competitors sailing down the Seine.
With just three days to go, available tickets cost between £700 and £2,200, with hospitality packages priced at more than £3,000.
Such figures for a ceremony lasting less than four hours have incensed the unions, which say that profits are not being shared with ordinary workers.
Many of the 3,000 dancers, acrobats and actors who will contribute to the show were working for low wages, or even for free, and were pointing to “glaring inequality and discrimination”, said the SFA spokesman.
Show dancers were recruited “under shameful conditions, or without payment”, the spokesman added.
It comes as other unions threaten similar strike action during the ceremony, which is expected to be attended by up to 600,000 people.
Pay rates for the evening range from between the equivalent of around £50 to £1,400 for entertainment professionals.
Hundreds of volunteers earning nothing at all will be on duty throughout the evening.
The performers’ union is part of the CGT Confederation of General Workers, which represents the largest number of state employees across France, and it has filed a strike notice covering the entire Olympics and Paralympics.
Céline Verzeletti, the CGT spokesman, said: “The advance notice covers all employees in the health sector, local authorities and the state.”
Police trade unionists are being given a bonus of up to £1,700 to try to prevent them from withdrawing their labour during the Games.
The threat of industrial action comes at a particularly difficult time for President Emmanuel Macron, who is currently relying on a provisional government following poor parliamentary election results.
Earlier this month, he accepted the resignation of Gabriel Attal, his prime minister, but asked him to stay on to help run the country until a new government could be selected.