Capitalist offensive in France
THIS YEAR, the French government is attempting a massive
offensive against workers and youth. National education is under attack. Post
and SNCF, the national railway company, have been reorganised to prepare the way
for privatisation. On 8 February, the government led by Jean-Pierre Raffarin
smashed the 35-hour working week. This onslaught has provoked anger against the
government and bosses amongst workers and youth. The more the government
attacks, the more the anger grows.
In 2003, a pension ‘reform’ (neo-liberal attack) was driven
through, followed by the semi-privatisation of the electricity and gas
utilities, followed by the ‘reform’ of social services in 2004. The main unions
organised a few demonstrations against these attacks, but no real mobilisation
in the workplaces. Struggles were very isolated, especially against redundancies
in the private sector.
The French capitalists are determined to ensure their own
profits by taking more and more from the workers and youth. It was significant
to see how quickly the government changed the work-hours law. Last December, a
first debate in the national assembly was the beginning of the end of the
35-hour week. On 8 February, the law was definitively changed and the 35-hour
week cancelled. On 1 March, the Senate will vote to ratify the decision. They
explain that it is a right to ‘work longer and be paid more’. The former law
introduced flexibility of time, on the basis of annualised hours. The new law
deals more with the question of payment of supplementary hours.
Besides this change in the law, the government is
authorising the right of bosses to make workers work longer without paying for
all the hours worked over and above 35. Bosses need to make rapid profits on
wages. The former 35-hour law, introduced by the ‘plural left’ government – a
coalition of social democrats, ‘communists’, greens and independents – gave them
the opportunity to cancel workplace breaks and other stoppages linked to the
production process. This new law not only enables them to pay lower wages for
the same work time, but also to introduce a lot of different wage scales and
levels inside the workplaces, dividing workers and breaking up collective
agreements.
Raffarin is trying to do his best job for the bosses now,
even if it turns out to be the last job for him before the referendum on the
European constitution due in June. That’s why Raffarin is standing firm on the
question of the change in the working week. French capitalism could not step
back on those issues without losing more influence in the world market.
The attacks have increased worries of the majority of the
population about income, redundancies, wages and life conditions in general.
Mobilisations against the attacks have been growing since the beginning of 2005.
Conflict between the workers and the government is greater than at any time
since the 2002 elections. Previously, in each sector, workers did not see as
well as they do now the link between attacks on their own conditions and those
on other sectors. But the capitalist strategy of attacking private and public
sectors separately does not work any more. People feel they are all ‘in the same
boat’.
On 20 January, more than 300,000 public-sector workers took
part in demonstrations to defend wages and living standards. On Saturday 5
February, 500,000 workers were on the streets in 118 cities demonstrating
against the 35-hour week ‘reform’, for wages and to defend public services. At
the same time, since 20 January, a school student movement has developed,
despite holidays in several regions. On Thursday 10 February, 100,000 school
students were on strike, demonstrating against the proposed new law on national
education. This huge school students’ movement is being well received by workers
and could reinforce their determination to fight. A combined struggle of the
workers and youth is the most scary situation that a government could be
confronted with.
Unions have a key role in that situation. Last year, workers
who wanted to struggle against cuts and privatisation felt that the unions
failed them. And the unions have lost influence over the past several years.
During the last two months, in the face of the bosses’ actions, rank-and-file
pressure has been growing in the workplaces. Union leaderships were obliged to
call a one-day strike in the public sector in January. For them it was also a
question of surviving as unions recognised by the workers and as organisations
the state has to deal with.
The massive demonstrations of public- and private-sector
workers on 5 February were a starting point. People realise that all sectors
need a common struggle to fight back against both the specific and generalised
attacks. This has concretely raised the issue of a unified struggle of all the
sectors to resist the bosses’ and government offensive.
Since the beginning of February, nothing clear has been
announced by the unions. In some sectors, such as national education, unions
have called for several days of action, demonstrations and a strike in March.
But none of them really call for the same one-day strike. In reality, the huge
potential for building that common strike day of all sectors against the new
35-hour law, redundancies, low incomes and attacks on public services makes them
worry. The leaders refuse to take responsibility. They are trying to avoid a
prolongation of a strike they could not control.
In all the sectors, workers need a common target. One day of
common strike action by all the workers and youth in the middle of March has to
be built as the main aim and prepared for in each sector. Workers cannot wait
for the unions to organise it.
A unified struggle is the only way that workers can stop the
offensive. We need to prepare it, all together, members of a union or not, by
building general assemblies and strike committees. Assemblies in each sector,
democratically controlled by the workers, are the starting point of an efficient
and successful common day of strike action against the bosses’ policy.
It is possible that the bosses and government are ready to
confront one day of strike action. But the possibility of a prolongation of that
into a general strike makes them nervous. A general strike stops the economy and
profits. Workers realise during a general strike that they have real power to
disturb, but also to control, production and to decide what to do with that
production.
A unified struggle is not a guarantee of success in stopping
permanently. The same measures could come back on the agenda. The more workers
are organised and prepared during the struggle, however, the less ability the
government will have to put forward new attacks after the struggle. A general
strike also raises the question of replacing the government. To get organised,
to discuss aims together, to decide and organise the strike, enables us to be
more aware of the situation. But it does not provide a programme to replace the
government, and we cannot be on strike all year.
The new political situation in France has opened the crucial
debate of how to fight the government and the bosses. The aim of a one-day
common strike of public- and private-sector workers is the only concrete aim to
put forward in the situation. Gauche Révolutionnaire, the French section of the
CWI, is the only organisation which has developed that aim in some unions and on
demonstrations and rallies. None of the unions, but also neither of the two
far-left organisations (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and Lutte Ouvrière)
have proposed concretely any way to oppose the government and the bosses. They
are talking of a need for "a counter-offensive of the workers", or of a building
a "big, all-together movement", without being more precise.
Today, the issue of building a new party which organises
workers, youth, unemployed and all those who want to fight back is a key
question. Such a party has to really break with capitalism and all the parties
which accept responsibility for managing misery for the poor and profits for the
rich. Such a party has to answer the question of the alternative to capitalism
and has to fight to build a society which can really satisfy the demands of all
the people: a socialist society. We need to fight for a socialist alternative to
capitalism with a concrete programme for the workers to fight back against
attacks.
Leïla Messaoudi
Gauche Révolutionnaire
CWI France
As we go to press the trade union federations of the CFDT,
CGT and FO have launched an appeal to all public and private sector workers to
organise work stoppages on 10 March. Although using very cautious wording, this
shows the tremendous pressure on the trade union leaderships for an
inter-professional 24-hour general strike. This call represents a new and
important stage in the struggle against the Raffarin government.
|