Workers Solidarity Movement |  |
The strike wave that rocked France in the closing month of 1995 isyet another example of the great fighting spirit of the Frenchworking class. Yet when we look at the causes of the strike and therelative weakness of French workplace organisation the question thatemerges is 'if they can do it, why can't we'?
The December strike wave was just the latest and largest in aseries of major strikes in France aimed at preventing theimplementation of cuts required under the Maastricht treaty. Theunderlying cause of this strike wave was the government's attempts toreduce the budget deficit from 5% to 3%. Their method for doing this,as elsewhere in Europe, was by cutting public spending. They aimed toraise the period before you could retire in the public service from37.5 years to 40 years and slash the health care & welfaresystems.
Although only 30% of the public sector and 10% of the privatesector are unionised, over 2 million workers came out on strike. Highunemployment meant that the strike was mostly confined to the publicsector but there were some strikes and occupations in the privatesector also. Opinion polls showed that around 60% of the populationsupported the strike.
A whole series of demonstrations took place during the strike. Thebiggest mobilised around 3 million people across the country. In manyregional towns these demonstrations were larger then those during1968. Anarchists played a major role in many of these events. InNantes on December 12th, for instance, 1,000 - 2,000 of the 50,000demonstrators were libertarians.
The French CNT (a small anarcho-syndicalist union) reported thatits members were very involved in the occupations of the mail centresin Lyon, Saint-Priest, and Satolas, the occupation of the hospital inLa Salpetriere and on the railways. In the private sectorin twoenterprises where CNT is active, there were considerable strikes :FNAC and Cite des Sciences de la Vilette.
A US anarchist sent the following report that nicely captures thefeelings of many of those involved
I am inside the offices of Agence Nationale Pourl'Emploi (the unemployment insurance bureau of France), which is nowoccupied by about 40 striking students from University FrancoisRabelais. Some 90% of this group describe themselves asanarchists.
At about four o'clock they entered the ANPE office andannounced that they would be occupying the place in order to demandchanges in the way universities are managed and funded by the Frenchgovernment. There was a long chat between the students and the ANPEstaff. It became apparent that the two sides were in agreement witheach other, and they decided to have supper together.
The scene developed in a way that would have been quiteunlikely here only a few years ago, and perhaps out of the questionin the US at any time. As I type this, late the following morning, Ifeel as though I have stepped in and out of a dream, which I onlyhope to see happen in my own country someday.
In general the strength of the movement was due to solidarity andthe willingness of the workers to break the law where it stood intheir way. From the start, for instance, railway pickets haltedtrains by holding mass meetings on the rails in the major stations.The police avoided confrontation with the rail workers but locallywent on the rampage. In the north-eastern town of Freyming-Merlebachsome 700 riot police and paramilitary gendarmes armed with tear gasand stun grenades fought running battles with striking miners armedwith crowbars, metal bolts and rocks. During these disturbances theminers built street barricades and set fire to a mine companybuilding.
In Paris the Pompidou Centre was occupied by several hundred ofthe unemployed, homeless, paperless and incomeless with the aimoflaunching a real and permanent forum for debate concerning exclusionand for convergence with the social movement. Anarchist reportshighlighted the great solidarity shown between workers, and with thepoor and the homeless. One of the most popular slogans ondemonstrations wasAll together, all together.
This was what the government and international capitalism mostfeared. A special feature in the bosses theoretical magazine, TheEconomist, pointed out that the danger in France was not a change ingovernment butthe spectre..of 1968: 10 million workers out onstrike, riots in the street and bourgeois society choking on itscroutons. [November 25th edition, at the start of the strikewave.]
The government moved on December 15th to defuse the strike wave.Prime Minister Alain Juppe scrapped a plan to cut the SNCF staterailways and promised not to touch public sector retirement schemes.But he did not back down on the health and welfare cuts. Despite thisthe union leadership called the strike off, although in severalareas' workers were still refusing to go back as late as December22nd. For now though it looks as if the government has re-gainedcontrol.
It was probably not a moment too soon for the bosses. On December15th public sector workers in Luxembourg had a one day strike.Likewise in Belgium a public sector strike wave started to break out.Workers all over Europe are facing the same attacks for the samereasons as the French workers, the bosses' planned monetary union in1997.
The lesson from the French strike wave is that if the bosses cancombine internationally to drive down our living conditions incountry after country then we can combine to beat them (and overthrowtheir rotten system). French workers have a powerful tradition ofmilitancy but there is nothing they did that workers in Ireland,Britain or anywhere else cannot do. Rather than looking to sectionalinterests we must take up the sloganall together and begin toapply it not just on a national level but also on a European andinternational level.
Andrew Flood
For those with internet access theFrench CNT have a web pagewith material in French, Spanish and English.
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