France: Millions protest against Villepin government


…but trade union leaders hesitate

SATURDAY 18 March saw a one-and-a-half million pro-testers take to
the streets in France. This was to protest against both the new CPE
youth employment contract law – which will allow employers to sack young
people at will – and against the government in general. In Paris up to
400,000 participated.

The anger against the CPE and the government has been enormously
increased by the police attack on a postal worker that has left him in a
coma. Last Saturday’s attack on this worker, a member of the SUD-PTT
union, has had a similar radicalising effect as the death of Malik
Oussekine did during a 1986 protest that made Chirac, then prime
minister, withdraw a plan to limit university entrance.

Currently, the government appears to be sticking to its course,
although the bosses are now talking about making a few limited
concessions regarding the CPE law, but these are now seen as too little
to late.

The latest opinion poll says that the CPE is rejected by 73% of the
population. But the trade union leaders are, as so often has happened
before, hesitating.

Despite having threatened the government with a general strike
instead they have called a "day of action" on 28 March. One
trade union leader explained that they did this because the words
‘general strike’ have "an insurrectional meaning", in other
words they did not want to challenge the government as a whole. They
would like a day of protests rather than a mobilisation for the next
stage of struggle.

In contrast to others on the Left, Gauche Revolutionnaire, (a section
of the Committee for a Workers’ International, France – the socialist
international organisation to which the Socialist Party in England and
Wales is affiliated) has continued to call for a general strike to unify
the struggle against the CPE with those against the other attacks on
living standards that President Chirac and the Dominique de Villepin
government are attempting to carry out.

As Gauche Revolutionnaire explained in a recent statement, it
"defends the idea of a massive and democratic strike. We think, as
well, that we need a real alternative to capitalism, a new party that
can be a key tool in struggles and to resist capitalism. Such a party
can be born out of the present strike, if campaigning or strike
committees, while building the struggle, extend their demands to unite
workers and youth against capitalism."