Frankrig 2006: Studenteroprør mod nyliberalisme
Frankrig: Studenteroprør mod nyliberalisme
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Frankrig 2006: Studenteroprør mod nyliberalisme
Huge demonstrations rock the French government
Socialist Worker 1993, 25 March 2006 (
The movement against a youth employment law – know by the acronym CPE – in France has been on the rise for the last week with huge demonstrations and more and more universities on strike, blockaded and occupied.
More worrying for president Jacques Chirac has been the involvement of school students. Some schools have been blockaded by their students, others occupied overnight or shut down on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Everywhere you go people have been talking about the new law – at work, in bars, at home.
So everyone was expecting the demonstrations on Saturday 18 March to be big – but they were absolutely massive. They were of a completely different quality to traditional trade union protests.
There were estimates of 1.5 to two million people being involved nationally. The 350,000 strong demonstration in Paris had a similar feel to the demo of a million people against the electoral success of fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002.
People turned out in huge numbers – all ages, families, colleagues from work and students.
Stretches of Saturday’s demonstration consisted of tightly packed marchers pushing forward with homemade placards and banners.
They had a quiet determination to show the government by their presence that enough was enough.
Other parts of the protest, particularly from the universities, showed the same enthusiasm and determination as in previous weeks, with chanting, shouting and clapping.
This movement has grown slowly but surely after a long period of argument and debate.
The student protests have attracted the support of a wider layers of people who see the CPE as an attack on all workers. A teacher exclaimed on the march, “We’re fed up, right across the board.”
At the end of a long afternoon, as the news came in from the rest of the country, the feeling was that the government would have to cave in.
Even the most moderate trade union leaders have been talking of the possibility of a one day general strike if the government doesn’t withdraw the law.
The national student coordination, assembled on Sunday, called on workers to strike on Thursday of this week and join them in a huge demonstration.
The union leaders had given the prime minister Dominique de Villepin until Monday of this week to withdraw the bill. However, the threatened general strike may be reduced to a day of action with stoppages and will almost certainly be put back a week.
Despite this backsliding, the government could still be defeated. For months now, activists on the left have been hoping that the government in its arrogance would overreach itself.
Having won victories last year over social security reform, privatisation and a new contract for workers in small companies without much response from the unions, the government pushed ahead with the present law for young people.
Locked in a competition with his interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidential elections next year, Villepin has tried to set himself up as the hard man ready to press on with the neo-liberal agenda.
Despite warnings from the bosses’ organisation and others on the right, he decided to take on university and school students, a volatile and unpredictable sector of the population.
The final mistake for the government was to have alienated François Chérèque, the more than moderate leader of the CFDT, the second major union federation, by refusing to negotiate.
This explains Chérèque’s readiness to threatenmilitant action. Now it’s up to the students and rank and file workers, and their ability to draw in wider forces to push the union leaderships to call on the action needed to win.
French student: ‘We are part of a united front against this law’
Every morning at 7am students arrive to blockade our university. We put desks and chairs across the entrances.
On our campus this is mainly symbolic because the majority of students and staff support the struggle.
In other colleges there have been attempts by some students to break the occupations – though they are a minority with very little support.
From day one it was important that we kept everybody informed about the occupations.
We have daily general assemblies in the colleges that are addressed by union militants and campaigners on how to take the struggle forward.
We make decisions on tactics and strategy at these meetings, then issue leaflets and bulletins to the students, university staff and the local community.
These meetings send delegates to a student coordination committee that includes students and trade unions from across the country.
We are part of a united front against the government that goes beyond traditional politics.
The spirit of ’68 returns to France
French youth are in revolt. From the poor suburbs to the elite universities, young people have taken to the streets, occupied universities and closed schools in protest at new employment laws that will trash their rights at work.
This movement is now in direct confrontation with the state, with mass demonstrations in towns and cities across the country, and daily clashes with the feared CRS riot police.
Oriana Garcia is a student Paris III-Censier university. Her college is one of 67 out of 84 universities that have gone on strike since the protests began on 24 February.
She told Socialist Worker, “Our movement has the spirit of 1968. If that uprising was against repression, ours is a revolt against neo-liberalism and a government that wants to drive the working conditions of young people back to the 19th century.
“Our movement is now growing in an important way. We have the sympathy of millions of workers across the country. The students have been able to take the lead because we are in a good position to confront the government. But our revolt is pulling in workers, the poor and the unemployed.”
The revolt was sparked by the introduction of the “first job contract” –known as the CPE –a youth employment law that makes it legal for employers to sack workers under the age of 26 without notice or compensation.
The CPE is the brainchild of right wing prime minister Dominique de Villepin. He claims the new law will encourage employers to hire the children of Arab and African immigrants who live in the banlieues, the belts of poverty that ring many French cities.
The banlieues erupted in riots in November 2005 after years of racism, unemployment and police violence.
Marie Périn, a representative on the mobilising committee at Censier, said the new law forced many students to directly address the problems in the suburbs.
She said, “We organised meetings and debates on neo-liberalism, the November riots and racism. These meetings helped to win students and many workers to the idea of taking our campaign to the banlieues.
“The obvious route was by linking up with the schools students of the lycées [high schools], but we also went into the poor areas and appealed directly to the alienated youth.
“Our occupation is part of the movement that successfully campaigned for a no vote in the European Union constitution referendum last summer, and part of the anger that erupted into rioting last November. It is part of the anti-war movement and the movement against French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.”
Shame
Villepin hoped that by linking the new law to promises of more opportunities for the banlieues, he would be able to drive a wedge between workers, students and unemployed youth.
The government tried to shame the students, saying they were selfishly defending their privileges against the needs of the unemployed. Many newspapers ran stories claiming that the banlieues would welcome the chance of jobs, even if the conditions of employment made them second class citizens.
But the law has stoked the simmering anger in the suburbs.
High school students of the lycées brought the struggle of the banlieues into the heart of the university protests. They were welcomed by student militants.
“Showing the lycées we are serious was the most important test for us,” says student Adan Sylva. “University students have taken the lead, but it is the high schools that have given the movement momentum.
“The government wants to portray this as a revolt by privileged students, but we are only one element of a wider struggle. The lycées, the unemployed, those who exist on part time or low wages, the poor of the banlieues and workers are also part of this movement.”
Last Thursday’s student demonstration was an important test of thatunity.
University students marched out of the occupied campuses, while streams of high school students from across the capital, including tens of thousands from the banlieues, converged on the historic Left Bank chanting “resistance”.
By 2pm over 150,000 had gathered in Paris, while over half a million protested in towns and cities across the country. Many of the lycées decided to strike.
Milan, Yohann, Stephane, Alexandra and Antoine joined the march after organising a strike at their school that morning.
They told Socialist Worker, “We tried to pull our school out on Tuesday, but it was difficult, so this morning a group of us decided to make a protest at the school gate at 8am.
“We called for a strike and the whole school came out. Even the teachers encouraged our strike –they are also very unhappy with the new law. We made a banner and marched down to the demonstration.”
Pierre Tuboule is from the Lycée Honoré de Balzac in north westParis. His school has been on strike since Tuesday.
Pierre said, “This government is in deep trouble, but it is vital that we keep up the pressure and keep our movement on the streets. The important question for us is what happens next week.”
Claudine Martin is a member of the Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, the 180,000 strong teacher’s union. She was part of a delegation of teachers on the demonstration.
She said, “We are very unhappy with this law. As teachers we object to educating children just for them to become fodder for the bosses.
“As parents we don’t want to see an uncertain future for our children. If you do not have a work contract you will not be able to get a flat, or a bank loan.
“We also object to the constant attacks on our pensions, wages and conditions. This government would like us all to be put on short contracts, so that we can be hired and fired at will. This is why the country is behind the students and the youth.
“They are fighting for us all, and they are ahead of us in this struggle. The unions will be meeting over this weekend to plan our next step. Many of us would like to see a strike.”
Attacks
Gerard and Denis, train conductors from the southern city of Montpellier, joined the demonstration.
“The CPE is part of a Europe-wide offensive by the bosses,” says Denis. “For this reason the revolt is more than just about the young and the students. They have taken the lead in resisting this law.”
“The government want to shit on us, and shit on the young people,” says Gerard. “If the government does not retreat we have to keep on the streets. It is the only way.”
The protests have left the government reeling. French president Jacques Chirac called for calm while Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister whose actions helped spread the November riots, unleashed the CRS riot police.
The CRS stormed into the Sorbonne university on the night of Saturday 11 March. This university, in the heart of the historic Latin Quarter, was the centre of the 1968 uprising. Sarkosy hoped that by smashing the Sorbonne occupation he could halt the movement in its tracks.
He miscalculated. The students of the Sorbonne joined the occupation at Censier, while the revolt spread to the schools. By Tuesday unofficial strikes and walkouts took place across the country, while there were nightly clashes with police outside the Sorbonne.
On Thursday’s demonstration trade unionists linked arms to form a cordon at the head of the march, while students formed human barriers around the riot police along the route of the march.
But the police were determined to attack the demonstration.
At the end of the route the front of the march was blocked in at all sides by the CRS. Police sprayed the trade unionists with tear gas while snatch squads beat young demonstrators.
For over two hours police baton charged the demonstration, threw stun grenades and fired tear gas. The government then blamed the trouble on gangs of “hooligans” from the banlieues.
Censier student Marie Périn said, “If the students can reach the workers in the same way that we have reached out to the banlieues, then we can defeat not only this law, but the neo-liberal project across Europe.
“The stakes are high.”
Interview with Daniel Bensaïd:‘This movement is directly based on asocial question’
As someone who took part in the mobilisations of May 1968, what do you think are the principal similarities and differences between those events and what’s happening today?
There are many more differences than similarities. In reality, the student movement of 1968 was an important but minority movement even up to the “night of the barricades” on 10 May.
It was after the occupation of the Sorbonne university and the start of the general strike by workers that the movement really generalised.
The other difference lies in the motives of the movement. In 1968, the spark was a demonstration against the war in Vietnam. The themes were very internationalist – solidarity with Vietnam, and with the German and Polish students.
Along with these issues were others like the question of mixed university halls of residence.
The present movement is directly based on a social question –the destruction of workplace regulations and the generalised casualisation of employment, which is common both to youth in education and to workers. The question of the link, and not just solidarity, between the two is therefore immediate.
Finally, the fundamental difference is with the general context and in particular with the way unemployment weighs on things. In 1968, the unemployed were counted in tens of thousands in a period of great expansion, so students had no worries about the future.
Today six million people are either without work or casually employed, and over the past few years we have experienced a series of social defeats, despite the big movements of 1995 over public services, and of 2003 over pensions. So the balance of forces that the present movement has intervened in is, at the outset, very unfavourable.
In 1968, and again in 1986, the student movement was followed by strikes. What is the relationship between the present mobilisations and the labour movement?
The link is natural, and the labour movement is less closed, or even hostile, than it was towards students in 1968.
At the time this hostility, or wariness, was fostered in particular by the workerist demagoguery of the Communist Party and of the CGT trade union federation, which controlled the big bastions of the labour movement.
Today relations are not so closed. On the one hand the ability of the bureaucratic machines to control things has been considerably weakened.
On the other the overall expansion of secondary and higher education means it is no longer possible to portray students as an exclusively middle class layer.
But the trade union bureaucracy continues to act as a brake, as we can see from their slowness to call a general strike. After the big demonstrations of 18 March this would be the only way to take things to another level and, perhaps, make the government give way.
CGT union leader Bernard Thibault has raised the prospect of a general strike against the CPE. What role are the major trade union confederations – the CGT, Force Ouvrière and the CFDT – playing in the movement?
All the unions have declared themselves against the CPE and have called for days of action. But on 7 March only Force Ouvrière gave official notice of strike action, thus allowing its members to take part. The CFDT is dragging its feet.
And the CGT did not do all it could have done on 18 March to mobilise beyond its apparatus (which is considerable). Up to now, apart from the FSU teachers’ federation, which is putting forward a clear proposal for strike action, it seems that the confederations are preparing for another mobilisation some way off – on 28 or 30 March – which for us is much too late.