From: www.ft-ci.org
France facing economic crisis
A good beginning in the first test of strength against Sarkozy
By Juan Chingo
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Today's day of action in France was massive: according to the police, more than a million people participated throughout France, and 2,500,000, according to the CGT. Quantitatively, it is the equal of the big demonstrations that forced the government to back down in 2006, in the struggle against the CPE (first employment contract) or, still further back, in 2003, the struggle for pensions and those of 1995 against Juppé, against the reform of the special system for the railway workers and the RATP (subway and urban transport) and social security, although probably slightly smaller than the last of these struggles. However, compared with those actions, what is original (and potentially significant) about today's action is:
(1) The increasing participation, such as has not been seen for a long time, of the workers of private, industrial and service firms, big multinationals like the steel giant Arcelor Mittal, the automotive companies Peugeot Citroën, Renault Ford, the big tire company Michelin, the environmental gorup Veolia, the private telephone company Free, or the big supermarkets like Carrefour or other wholesale businesses like FNAC and Galeries Lafayette. Although not organized, wage earners from the small and medium-sized companies also participated (as can be seen from direct statements or from media reports of the contingents). From this point of view, the participation of public- and private-sector workers or wage earners is the largest in recent decades (one must stress large participation by teachers and health service workers).
(2) Unlike the struggle against the CPE or the 2003 struggle that ended in defeat, or even the government employees' general strike in 1995, the current movement does not possess a clear unifying demand, but is a clearly political day of action against the results of unemployment, the drop in purchasing power, the destruction of health care and public education, uncertainty in employment, especially among the youngest workers, and basically the feeling of unfairness in that there is a bailout for the banks (recently, it was discovered that, in spite of the last quarter's losses, they ended the year with profits), and nothing for wage earners and retirees. This is shown in the widespread sympathy the action enjoyed among the population (around 75% support), something not seen since 1995 and even at levels higher than then.
On the other hand, we must maintain:
(1) Unlike the struggles mentioned previously, where it was a matter of a day of mobilizations, strikes and struggles of several days or weeks, the current struggle was a strike and demonstration of only one day. To a large extent, the union leaderships called it to try to lessen wage earners' anger, which could be expressed (there is a great fear of this) in harsh strikes in some sector, and without any perspective of continuing. However, the success of the day and the goverment's refusal to change the orientation of the stimulus plan even minimally in the sense that the union leaderships are asking - favoring consumption and not investment, or lowering the value added tax, which conflicts with the fiscal deficit, or increasing the minimum wage, a measure fiercely resisted by the MEDEF [largest employers' association in France], even more so in times of crisis - could force the unions to call new days of struggle as joblessness deepens and anger increases.
(2) Although there were groups of very combative high school students, who were chanting with all their might, the student movement, both high schoolers and, even to a large extent, college students, is still absent. Their entry is one of the things the government most fears (as do the unions themselves, as they showed in the last wave of joint struggles in 2008, where the union bureaucracy abandoned the university students' movement, which ended up brutally beaten), because of the radicalism it could add to the situation.
(3) Finally, the transportation strike was not as terrible as expected, which kept the strike action of other movements from being spectacular and forceful, even more so when one takes into account the importance of this sector in capitalist economy in general and particularly in France, where it has been the backbone of the workers' movement in recent decades. However, this fact highlights another characteristic of this day, when many wage earners stayed at home, lots of them probably in support of the measure and others, only taking the day off for themselves or fearing bigger disruptions, which did not happen. As we see it, this element, stressed by some newspapers in order to breathe freely, continues to emphasize the political character of the action.
The question remains open. The government, as an analysis from the daily Le Monde of January 28 commented, is beginning to show symptoms of weakness. The speed in the change of the state of mind of the population, which in the last six months was astonished and shocked, facing the crisis, and passed to the current dissatisfaction, to the return of "France, that resists," has made the optmistic, swaggering face of Sarkozy's hard right government change. The Parisian daily says this in the following way: "Nicolás Sarkozy, facing the syndrome of the regicidal country" and suggests that "the President of the Republic asserts that he wants to continue the reforms, but he also confesses that 'France is not the simplest country in the world to govern.' He recalls that 'the French guillotined a king,' that 'in the name of a symbolic measure, they could turn the country around.' He speaks of France as a 'regicidal country.'"
The key, then, is the ability of wage earners to respond and organize. In the first place, this passes through fighting for the measures to continue by organizing a real plan of struggle and not unconnected days of action, that have already led big movements in the streets to exhaustion in the past. In the second place, it is crucial to approve a real sheet of demands that includes all the most sensitive grievances and demands for working people and youth (and not the tepidly pseudokeynesian plea of of the document of the eight union centers that called today's action) that would truly weld the unity of the working class and the oppressed, especially their most exploited sectors, the youth of the impoverished suburbs ("banlieues") that mobilized to a great extent in the recent marches in opposition to Zionist aggression against Gaza and, as a deciding question, the young wage eaners, who suffer chiefly the uncertain nature of work with contracts of determined length and who are the first to be fired. Third, we must take up again the best traditions of self-organization that the cycle of struggles of the French workers and youth have given, especially, the attempts at coordination in some cities in the 1995 general strike of public sector employees or the example of the student coordinating committee in 2006, and extend that to the entire workers' movement and deepen it. This is the only way to overcome the trap that the bureaucracy set for the big mobilizations of youth and workers in recent years, leading many of them to defeat, or, when the magnitude of the movement prevented that, to mere, partial setbacks that failed to reverse the fall in the population's standard of living, which has now fiercely accelerated with the crisis, and then allowing the government on duty to retake the offensive. In conclusion, the political character of the action makes the problems of program, strategy and leadership of the wage earners more acute than ever, in order to continue the action and raise it to a confrontation and nothing less, against the regime, the government and the France of the big capitalists and bankers.
Only in this way, trusting in their own forces and organization, placing no confidence in the false friends that are now approaching their marches to try to capitalize on dissatisfaction, like the leadership of the Socialist Party (that has already shown in the past that when it governs, it has no difference from the right wing, and now only wants to relocate itself, in view of the next European elections and the growth of the "far left"), will the French workers and youth be able to defeat Sarkozy and his plan to make the workers pay for the crisis once more.
France facing economic crisis
A good beginning in the first test of strength against Sarkozy
By Juan Chingo
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Today's day of action in France was massive: according to the police, more than a million people participated throughout France, and 2,500,000, according to the CGT. Quantitatively, it is the equal of the big demonstrations that forced the government to back down in 2006, in the struggle against the CPE (first employment contract) or, still further back, in 2003, the struggle for pensions and those of 1995 against Juppé, against the reform of the special system for the railway workers and the RATP (subway and urban transport) and social security, although probably slightly smaller than the last of these struggles. However, compared with those actions, what is original (and potentially significant) about today's action is:
(1) The increasing participation, such as has not been seen for a long time, of the workers of private, industrial and service firms, big multinationals like the steel giant Arcelor Mittal, the automotive companies Peugeot Citroën, Renault Ford, the big tire company Michelin, the environmental gorup Veolia, the private telephone company Free, or the big supermarkets like Carrefour or other wholesale businesses like FNAC and Galeries Lafayette. Although not organized, wage earners from the small and medium-sized companies also participated (as can be seen from direct statements or from media reports of the contingents). From this point of view, the participation of public- and private-sector workers or wage earners is the largest in recent decades (one must stress large participation by teachers and health service workers).
(2) Unlike the struggle against the CPE or the 2003 struggle that ended in defeat, or even the government employees' general strike in 1995, the current movement does not possess a clear unifying demand, but is a clearly political day of action against the results of unemployment, the drop in purchasing power, the destruction of health care and public education, uncertainty in employment, especially among the youngest workers, and basically the feeling of unfairness in that there is a bailout for the banks (recently, it was discovered that, in spite of the last quarter's losses, they ended the year with profits), and nothing for wage earners and retirees. This is shown in the widespread sympathy the action enjoyed among the population (around 75% support), something not seen since 1995 and even at levels higher than then.
On the other hand, we must maintain:
(1) Unlike the struggles mentioned previously, where it was a matter of a day of mobilizations, strikes and struggles of several days or weeks, the current struggle was a strike and demonstration of only one day. To a large extent, the union leaderships called it to try to lessen wage earners' anger, which could be expressed (there is a great fear of this) in harsh strikes in some sector, and without any perspective of continuing. However, the success of the day and the goverment's refusal to change the orientation of the stimulus plan even minimally in the sense that the union leaderships are asking - favoring consumption and not investment, or lowering the value added tax, which conflicts with the fiscal deficit, or increasing the minimum wage, a measure fiercely resisted by the MEDEF [largest employers' association in France], even more so in times of crisis - could force the unions to call new days of struggle as joblessness deepens and anger increases.
(2) Although there were groups of very combative high school students, who were chanting with all their might, the student movement, both high schoolers and, even to a large extent, college students, is still absent. Their entry is one of the things the government most fears (as do the unions themselves, as they showed in the last wave of joint struggles in 2008, where the union bureaucracy abandoned the university students' movement, which ended up brutally beaten), because of the radicalism it could add to the situation.
(3) Finally, the transportation strike was not as terrible as expected, which kept the strike action of other movements from being spectacular and forceful, even more so when one takes into account the importance of this sector in capitalist economy in general and particularly in France, where it has been the backbone of the workers' movement in recent decades. However, this fact highlights another characteristic of this day, when many wage earners stayed at home, lots of them probably in support of the measure and others, only taking the day off for themselves or fearing bigger disruptions, which did not happen. As we see it, this element, stressed by some newspapers in order to breathe freely, continues to emphasize the political character of the action.
The question remains open. The government, as an analysis from the daily Le Monde of January 28 commented, is beginning to show symptoms of weakness. The speed in the change of the state of mind of the population, which in the last six months was astonished and shocked, facing the crisis, and passed to the current dissatisfaction, to the return of "France, that resists," has made the optmistic, swaggering face of Sarkozy's hard right government change. The Parisian daily says this in the following way: "Nicolás Sarkozy, facing the syndrome of the regicidal country" and suggests that "the President of the Republic asserts that he wants to continue the reforms, but he also confesses that 'France is not the simplest country in the world to govern.' He recalls that 'the French guillotined a king,' that 'in the name of a symbolic measure, they could turn the country around.' He speaks of France as a 'regicidal country.'"
The key, then, is the ability of wage earners to respond and organize. In the first place, this passes through fighting for the measures to continue by organizing a real plan of struggle and not unconnected days of action, that have already led big movements in the streets to exhaustion in the past. In the second place, it is crucial to approve a real sheet of demands that includes all the most sensitive grievances and demands for working people and youth (and not the tepidly pseudokeynesian plea of of the document of the eight union centers that called today's action) that would truly weld the unity of the working class and the oppressed, especially their most exploited sectors, the youth of the impoverished suburbs ("banlieues") that mobilized to a great extent in the recent marches in opposition to Zionist aggression against Gaza and, as a deciding question, the young wage eaners, who suffer chiefly the uncertain nature of work with contracts of determined length and who are the first to be fired. Third, we must take up again the best traditions of self-organization that the cycle of struggles of the French workers and youth have given, especially, the attempts at coordination in some cities in the 1995 general strike of public sector employees or the example of the student coordinating committee in 2006, and extend that to the entire workers' movement and deepen it. This is the only way to overcome the trap that the bureaucracy set for the big mobilizations of youth and workers in recent years, leading many of them to defeat, or, when the magnitude of the movement prevented that, to mere, partial setbacks that failed to reverse the fall in the population's standard of living, which has now fiercely accelerated with the crisis, and then allowing the government on duty to retake the offensive. In conclusion, the political character of the action makes the problems of program, strategy and leadership of the wage earners more acute than ever, in order to continue the action and raise it to a confrontation and nothing less, against the regime, the government and the France of the big capitalists and bankers.
Only in this way, trusting in their own forces and organization, placing no confidence in the false friends that are now approaching their marches to try to capitalize on dissatisfaction, like the leadership of the Socialist Party (that has already shown in the past that when it governs, it has no difference from the right wing, and now only wants to relocate itself, in view of the next European elections and the growth of the "far left"), will the French workers and youth be able to defeat Sarkozy and his plan to make the workers pay for the crisis once more.
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