The Socialist (Apr 06) - France rocked as millions strike and protest

France has been rocked by mass protests against the First Job Contract (CPE) which have seen millions take to the street, undermining the right-wing government of Dominique de Villepin. Daniel Waldron looks at recent developments and Chris Loughlin looks at the lessons of the 1968 general strike.

The CPE would allow employers to sack any worker under 26 years-old without giving a reason, unless they have been in the job for more than 2 years. The government claims that the law is aimed at cutting youth unemployment, which currently runs at over 20%, double the national average. They argue that this would give employers an incentive to take on younger workers.

In reality, this is an attempt to give big business a cheap and easily disposable source of labour to exploit and make profit off. It would smash young workers ability to defend themselves against other attacks on their pay and conditions. Young people in France are fighting against being turned into the "Kleenex generation", that can be thrown away when bosses are done with them.

Initially, the demonstrations were dominated by students. However, the trade unions were soon forced into action against the law by pressure from their rank-and-file. The CPE comes only months after the CNE, which allowed businesses with fewer than 20 employees to sack any worker in their position for less than 2 years without reason. Working-class people see that the government and bosses want to generalise these attacks on job security and conditions and that if the CPE is implemented, they will be next in the firing line.

18 March saw 1.5 million protest against the CPE. Polls show that 73% of the population oppose the introduction of the law. The day of action on 28 March saw the number of people involved in demonstrations double, with the trade union leadership claiming 3 million participants. In Marseilles alone there was roughly a quarter of a million on the streets. A week later, millions of workers, predominantly from the public sector, again mobilised against the CPE. Over 200 rallies took place across the country, some involving hundreds of thousands of people, including 700,000 in Paris. Airports were affected by the action and transport strikes were held in 32 towns and cities. Workers are using this struggle against the CPE as a vehicle to voice their opposition to all the right-wing policies of the government and send a clear message to them.

After the Constitutional Council ruled the CPE was legal, President Jacques Chirac signed the law into existence on 31 March. However, in the face of mass opposition from workers and youth, he immediately declared that it was inoperable in its current form. Edouard Balladur, former Prime Minister and ally of Sarkozy, said of the CPE, "It has disappeared. It is dead. Everyone knows it." Balladur himself was forced to back down on attacks on young workers’ conditions by mass protests in 1994.

Compromise

Chirac has asked employers not to implement the law until changes are made to it. He aims to reach a compromise with the leaders of the trade unions and bring the demonstrations, which are marring the last year of his presidency, to a halt. He suggested cutting the trial period during which workers can be sacked without reason to 1 year. Up until now, the trade unions have continued to reject such suggestions. With the determined mood of ordinary workers, the leaders of the CGT and other unions have been forced to demand the scrapping of both the CPE and its predecessor, the CNE. However they have agreed to enter into negotiations with the government to "resolve the crisis".

The conservative leaders of the trade unions have acted to hold back the movement of workers and young people. The calls for a general strike among workers to deal a decisive blow against the government are growing louder. A national student meeting called for a general strike on 4 April. Calling this type of action could broaden the struggle, bringing in larger sections of the private sector, as workers in individual companies would feel less isolated and open to victimisation. Despite this, the trade union leadership have refused to call a general strike, stating that this course of action would have an "insurrectionary meaning", showing they are unwilling to take on the government in a more serious and generalised way.

The trade union leadership in France, as in most countries, is dominated by extremely well-paid, careerist bureaucrats. They are worried about the effect that unleashing the huge potential power of the working class could have inside the unions themselves. A successful, militant struggle would give huge confidence to rank-and-file trade unionists and could "rock the boat" in terms of the career prospects of conservative bureaucrats.

The trade union leaders are trying to let the movement release steam by holding one day of action a week. We may see workers spontaneously deciding to extend strike action from below, which has happened in other struggles in France. However, there is a danger that workers and young people could become worn down by a long-running series of one-day activities with no real direction. This could allow the government to implement a watered-down form of the CPE with the agreement of the trade union bureaucrats.

Unfortunately, there have been incidents where student demonstrations have been attacked by gangs of youths from the most deprived areas, attempting to steal mobile phones and other valuables. The trade unions could make an appeal to these marginalised young people by generalising the struggle against the CPE into opposition to all the right-wing, capitalist policies of the government, offering them a future to fight for, while also organising defence of demonstrations from attacks. Instead, the leadership of the unions have simply asked for more police to protect demonstrations from criminal elements while using their stewards to try to keep politics and general criticism of the government out.

The CPE and CNE are merely symptoms of the capitalist system that is reliant upon driving down the living conditions of workers internationally. On 28 March, as 3 million protested against the CPE in France, 1.5 million British workers took part in the biggest day of strike action since the Winter of Discontent in protest against attacks on their pensions. The owners of big business and their cohorts in the main political parties have an insatiable desire for greater and greater profit. It is this system which has created the high unemployment among young people that exists in France today. Companies are increasingly shifting production to the neo-colonial world, to exploit cheaper labour and raw materials. The government have failed to invest in retaining and creating decent jobs. Young people are faced with the unappealing prospect of competing for typically low-paid, service-sector jobs with few rights and little security.

Challenge capitalism

To defend and improve the living standards of workers and young people, the capitalist system itself must be challenged. However, the so-called Socialist and Communist parties in France, like the trade union bureaucrats, refuse to take a lead in this struggle. When in government at all levels, they have implemented cuts and other pro-capitalist policies, resulting in their heavy defeats in the 2002 general election.

There is a basis for a new working class party in France that provides a fighting alternative to the pro-capitalist policies of the main parties. As Gauche Révolutionnaire (Revolu-tionary Left, the French section of the CWI, to which the Socialist Party is affiliated) has argued, the current strike provides an opportunity to lay the basis for such a party if campaigning and strike committees link up across the country and agree an extended programme of demands which could unite workers and youth in their common interests. This would be a huge step forward for the French working class, and would also act as an example to workers and young people around the world, advancing the struggle against capitalism internationally.

Eyewitness report from Paris

Dave Convery was part of an international CWI contingent on the 4 April demonstration in Paris. Dave reports on some of the events he witnessed.

The Anti-CPE protest on 4 April marked an historic day for France. It was the first time school students, students and workers' unions joined together in a common and coordinated struggle. Over three million took to the streets in protest against Chirac, Villepin, Sarkozy and the CPE.

The Paris demo began at 2.00pm but there were already groups arriving at the Place de la Republique at noon. Very soon thousands of people came pouring into the square from sidestreets, and from the metro. The school students were the most vocal and perhaps the most political group on the demonstration. Schools all over France have been on strike for weeks now.

Third level students are also quite militant in this struggle. Thousands have been occupying or boycotting their universities. We spent the morning of the demonstration at the University of St Denis in north Paris. St Denis is one of the most deprived areas of Paris and is home to a large immigrant community. It was the heartland of last autumn’s rioting against the lack of jobs and the oppression faced by youth, particularly immigrant youth in France. The university is made up of working class youth, 80% of who have to work part time in order to make ends meet. They have been occupying the university on and off now for a few weeks and there is a great mood among the students that they will be victorious.

When we arrived, posters covered the windows and doors and the students were busy making banners and placards and discussing their strategy for the demonstration. Large assemblies have also been held over the last few weeks to discuss the campaign. Our comrades in Gauche Revolutionaire have been intervening and assisting in their struggle and are well respected among a layer of students.

The march was massive and it was incredible to be there in person to feel the energy, confidence and determination of the demonstrators. It took five hours to pass the Place de la Republique. The first half of it was mostly students and the second half was mostly unions and workers. Some had gone on strike for the day despite the refusal of union leaders to call for a general strike. Most joined after work had finished. The mood among the workers was very militant and many were quite vocal in calling for a general strike.

Despite the carnival atmosphere of the march, the media focused on the rioting of a small number of people against the police. The rioting was due to the actions of the police. 84,000 sealed off large areas of the city centre and had stopped, searched and arrested many, particularly immigrants, for no reason. The absence of a political alternative for the dissaffected to affect change is another reason for the rioting.

May 1968 - Month of revolution

May 1968 in France is a month synonymous with the student radicalism of the late 1960’s. This period of time itself is only remembered today as a period of "counter-culture" of young people "tuning in and dropping out". It’s remembered with rose tinted glasses by politicians who played a role in that period such as Daniel "Danny the Red" Cohn-Bendoit, now a Green Party MEP, who have completely deserted the struggle for socialism.

May 1968 signifies something much more significant for the international working class; it was a month in which the question of political power was placed squarely on the agenda for the working class movement in an advanced capitalist country. Also, the late 1960’s were significant because they heralded the beginning of the end for the long post-war economic upswing across the "Western" world. Huge working class revolts would spread across Europe (the "hot" autumn of 1969-70 in Italy a prime example) and economic crisis and instability would wrack much of Europe throughout the 1970’s and into the 1980’s.

May 1968 in France was the significant moment when class struggle would break through the cosy so-called "consensus" (i.e. class collaborationism) of the trade unions and communist parties throughout Europe.

Student revolt

So what were the causes and events of May 1968 in France really about? The trigger was a student revolt against the notoriously over-crowed and repressive university system in France. Student numbers had tripled in the decade preceding 1968 but resources such as accommodation and lecture facilities had only doubled in size. Students were also strictly divided into male and female dormitories with severe penalties for breaking the rules.

In early May 1968 students at Nanterre University demonstrated in response to threatened expulsions and were met with beatings, tear-gas and violence from the state. This repression was met with widespread sympathy from students across the nation who began sympathetic occupations of their own.

Sympathy was not just forthcoming from the student movement, wide layers of the working class were outraged at the beatings handed out to students. The student protests acted as a catalyst, a spark that unleashed a mass movement of workers against the draconian conditions that existed in the factories and the workplaces. The trade union leaders were forced by pressure from the working class to call a general strike from 13 May and hoped it would let off steam and dissipate the workers anger. However the strike developed into an all out general strike, probably the biggest general strike in history that completely paralysed the French state and threatened the very existence of capitalism.

At it’s height (22 May) up to 13 million French workers were out on strike, with key factories and workplaces such as Renault being occupied by workers. With French workers in open revolt, the state suspended "in the air" with no control over what was going on, France’s President General de Gaulle fled to a West German military base where he tried to organise a military coup to stop the "Reds" taking over. France was quite literally ripe for revolution, but French capitalism seized victory from the jaws of defeat through the use of the "lieutenants of labour", the French Communist Party and trade union leaders. Their treachery allowed the workers demands to be limited to purely economic issues rather than struggling to overthrow capitalism.

General de Gaulle announced new elections at the end of May on radio (the national TV station was on strike) which cut across the movement and led to an ebbing of the tide. A critical opportunity in working class history had been allowed to pass due to French Stalinism’s complete subservience to the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR whose existence would have been threatened by a successful socialist revolution in France.

The events of May 1968 are an example of Engel’s famous dictum that 20 years can have the combined history of one day while one day in history can be worth 20 years of history. Revolutionary situations can develop and change in exceptionally short periods of time. The necessity for a revolutionary party for a successful working class revolution is a major lesson to be learnt from May 1968.

France today

Current events in France while not of the same scale or magnitude still have very important parallels with those events from nearly 40 years ago. Again it is the youth that have been the spark for the current revolt against the new labour law, CPE. The youth have gained widespread sympathy from the working class who are taking part in the demonstrations against this new law.

While the question of political power is not posed at this moment, the question of real political representation of workers and youth is posed. There is a clear and burning need for a working class party that can express the interests of the majority against the "diktats" of French and global capitalism.