http://socialistaction.org/one-million-strike-in-france/
One million strike in France
Published April 17, 2016.
April 2016 France
By JEFF MACKLER
One million workers and students took to the streets of Paris and cities
across France on March 31 to protest draconian Labor Code changes
proposed by the austerity-minded governing French Socialist Party of
Francois Holland. The changes are set to be considered by the French
parliament in late April; more giant protests are planned at that time.
The March 31 nationwide mobilization, the largest since the great strike
waves of May-June 1968, was supported by France’s major trade union
federation, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). According to
activist participants of the French New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), an
estimated one-third of the participants were youth mobilized by various
national student organizations. Strikers included workers from a number
of public-employee unions, including teachers and train drivers.
The government’s proposal allows companies to organize alternative
“flexible” work schedules. These include a workweek of up to 48 hours,
as opposed to the maximum legal workweek today of 35 hours. In
“exceptional circumstances” employees could be compelled under the
proposed new law to work up to 60 hours a week, including mandatory
12-hours shifts. Other proposed changes are akin to part-time and casual
labor schemes implemented in the U.S.
Zoe Farre, 23, told Associated Press reporters during the Paris march
and rally that she had serious doubts about the government’s new job
“flexibility” intentions. “It’s going to be like the U.K. where you’re
on a zero-hour contract or like the U.S. where they make you hold a sign
in the street and call it a job,” she said.
Three weeks earlier, on March 9, with barely a week’s preparation,
500,000 French workers and students mobilized against the same proposed
legislation.
Leaders and activists of the French NPA have scored the proposed Labor
Code changes as “annihilating 100 years of past gains for the French
working class.” Additional mass protests are slated for April 26, April
28, and May 7, with worldwide solidarity marches on May 15. Some
dissident currents inside the CGTs have called for a general strike of
unlimited duration to force the government to abandon its proposed
anti-labor regulations, an idea that is gaining traction among
rank-and-file worker.
Immediately following the March 31 national mobilization, hundreds of
thousands of students, workers pensioners, artists, and others mobilized
every evening in a new movement called Nuit debout, which loosely means
“rise up at night.” From Paris to Toulouse, Lyon, and Nantes—and to
cities in Belgium, including Brussels—the protesters have taken up
long-held grievances over government corruption and the massive
austerity measures. The sit-ins and teach-ins, daily increasing in size
and scope, have obviously given pause to police and government
officials, who have to date refrained from attempts to physically remove
protesters.
The Place de la République in Paris saw speakers denouncing everything
from the tax-evasion schemes of the rich revealed by the “Panama
Papers,” housing inequality, and France’s racist refugee policies to the
government crackdown on democratic rights following the Jan. 2015
terrorist shootings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine.
One Paris protester summed up the political tenor of the mobilizations,
which appear to have been sparked by a core group of left-wing youth, as
follows: “There’s something here that I’ve never seen before in
France—all these people converge here each night of their own accord to
talk and debate ideas on any topic they like. No one has told them to,
no unions are pushing them on – they’re coming of their own accord.”
The British-based Guardian newspaper quoted Matthiew, 35, who was
retraining to be a teacher after 10 years in the private sector, as
follows: “The labor law was the final straw. But it’s much bigger than
that. This government, which is supposed to be socialist, has come up
with a raft of things I don’t agree with, while failing to deal with the
real problems like unemployment, climate change and a society heading
for disaster.”
As we go to press, many tens of thousands have taken to the streets of
London against austerity and demanding the resignation of British Prime
Minister David Cameron [over 150,000 marched in London on April 16].
London’s Daily Mail reported: “The embattled Prime Minister was accused
of ‘hypocrisy’ after he finally admitted profiting from more than
£30,000 in an offshore tax haven. After days of pressure, Mr. Cameron
acknowledged he had benefited from a controversial fund set up by his
late father Ian.
Clearly, the pent-up anger and resentment of French and British workers
and youth against the generalized assaults on their standard of living
and quality of life has found expression and new forms of organization.
The gap between this deeply felt outage and mass protests that focus on
the inherent horrors perpetrated by a world capitalism system in deep
crisis is narrowing.
The French and British mass democratic assemblies are a first and
important step to planning united, massive, and enduring protests
capable of inspiring working-class victories.
Photo: High school students in Marseille march against changes in the
Labor Code. Jean-Paul Pelisser / Reuters
Posted in Actions & Protest, Europe, International. | Tagged Britain,
France, NPA.
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