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Blog PostsFrance: Massive Demos and Strikes
By Richard Greeman at Oct 15, 2010 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/europe/14france.html?ref=todayspaper
On the one hand, it is thrilling to see millions of citizens taking to the streets as well as hundreds of thousands of workers striking in defense of their hard-won social rights defying an increasingly reactionary government. Indeed, what is most heartening is that the ‘troops’ seem to be more radical than their official leaders, the union chiefs and Socialist Party politicians. Recent polls showed the French public not only supports the one-day strikes (which make life Hell for commuters and parents of schoolchildren); nearly half are in favor of an open-ended general strike to make the government yield -- a strategy advocated by the far-Left parties like the NPA as well as by militant rank-and-file workers and local unions who are chomping at the bit.
Once again I am reminded about what I love about France: a still-living revolutionary tradition of popular mass mobilization and struggle that goes back to the sans-culottes of 1789, the revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1871 (the Paris Commune), the sit-down strikes of 1936, and in my own lifetime, the nationwide student-worker uprising of May-June 1968 and the1995 nationwide strike of public employees that went ‘wildcat,’ paralyzed France for two months (during which Parisians cheerfully commuted by bike and event boat) and forced an earlier conservative government to withdrawn its unpopular welfare ‘reforms.’ It’s also a great pleasure to see a nasty right-wing s.o.b. like Sarkozy humiliated by millions of angry, jeering citizens blocking the trains and taking over the streets.
On the other hand, I also have a disheartening feeling of déjà vu. Why? Because the unions used the same dilatory tactics of spaced one-day work public sector stoppages in 2009, and the government simply bided its time until summer, when the French go on vacation, and rammed the cuts through parliament late one August night. And this wasn’t the first time these tactics failed.
Indeed, ever since the runaway general strike of 1995, every time the French have massively demonstrated and gone on national strikes in opposition to government attacks on their labor and welfare rights (as in 2009, 2008 and 2003), the official leaders of the unions have imposed the delaying tactic of spaced one-day national work-stoppages and demonstrations – marches and counter-marches designed quite precisely to ‘demonstrate’ to the government their ability to call out their troops (and thus presumably to reign them in). These demonstrations are great for letting off steam, but inevitably they run out of steam. Time is always on the side of the government and the capitalists in the class struggle. The masses’ only strength is in numbers and resoluteness, and their most effective tactic, once they are mobilized, is to stay mobilized, spread the movement to all sectors of the economy, go for broke and paralyze the country until the bosses give in. As they did in 1936, 1968 and 1995.
The apparent purpose of the leadership’s military-style maneuvers is to make a show of force and induce the government to invite the union leaders to a round table -- thus recognizing their legitimacy as the official representatives of labor. This plays out in the media through competition over how many demonstrators went into the streets in each successive demonstration. Social struggle reduced to sports statistics. The unions count 3.5 million people, the police count less than half. The union leaders go on TV and call it a success: the government says it is not impressed and won’t budge. Then the politicians get into the act. With presidential elections looming and Sarkozy’s popularity at an all-time low, the Socialists, who in power also imposed neo-liberal cuts, grandstand their support for the movement. They, too, have an interest in prolonging the struggle against Sarkozy as they hope of reaping the results of his unpopularity at the polls. Former Socialist presidential candidate Segolène Royale encourages the youth, specifically high schoolers, to join the demonstrations. The Right (which has been cutting back teachers like mad) cries ‘scandal.’ Another political horserace.
The goal of the mass movement quite different. The strikers and demonstrators sincerely want to use their mass power to force the government to rescind the cuts, as the Chirac-Juppé government was forced to do in 1995, when rank-and-file assemblies ignored the unions’ cautious tactics and took matters into their own hands. Those 1995 strikes got out of hand and continued for two weeks until they achieved complete victory and the cuts were rescinded. Paradoxically, this victory was a stinging defeat not just for the government but also for the unions, who were de-legitimized as responsible ‘social partners’ unable to control of their troops.
This is worrisome for the brass at the CGT, CDFT and other federations, since only about 23% of French workers belong to unions, which are supported not by dues but by government allocations. Since 1995, the unions have tightened their control over the movement to prevent another wildcat breakaway. And you can’t cynically turn mass enthusiasm and anger on and off like a water tap without exhausting it, so such tactics inevitably spell defeat for working people whose dream of retiring keeps receding into the future while they remain on the treadmill.
Similar masses struggles are happening all over Europe, where the same neo-liberal cutbacks are being imposed in the name of paying ‘the debt’ (created by bailing out the banks). Yet here again, the Left politicians and union leaders, far from seeking strength through international solidarity, remain staunchly isolated within their national boundries, despite the obvious fact that the European Union has created a common economic zone! But the unions and left parties depend for their ‘franchise’ on the national state, which subsidizes them directly.
One hopes the French people, who are always full of surprises, will find some way out of this impasse in which their ‘representatives’ – the union leaders and the official left parties – are apparently their worst enemies.
Montpellier, France
Oct. 15, 2010
US Media Coverage of France
By Bramhall, Stuart at Oct 16, 2010 22:44 PM
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Meanwhile
By notme, at Oct 15, 2010 20:59 PM
Americans could learn a lot from the French.
There's a reason the French have better retirements.
And that in the future, when they have the retirements they fought for and we have the retirements that we let Obama, Alan Simpson and Wall Street tell us we get, someday we are going to look at the French and be jealous.
In Washington, its openly declared in the Congress that the bankers own the place. If Americans had any sense, then any attempt by this bunch in Washington to 'reform' social security would be met by a giant uprising that would dwarf these events. You'd think in the nation of Samual Adams, this would be happening. Instead, the quiet around me is deafening.
Good job French. At least someone knows how to fight for their own well-being. And, if you've got to run over some union bosses in the process, well, don't slow down and don't look back. They'll catch up with you sooner or later.
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Reply to Stuart
By Greeman, Richard at Nov 05, 2010 12:05 PM
Thanks for the kind words. I couldn't find your comments on France, but I just read your Thirdworldizations blog, excellent analysis.
We're seeing the same Third-Worldization in the U.S. education system: the privatization and cut-backs that the US-dominated IMF imposed in Africa are now chickens coming home to roost. Lois Weiner, a get-down and struggle socialist and education professor, is eloquent on this subject. Read her stuff at newpol.org
Cordially, Richard Greeman
PS I very much agree with your analysis of capitalism's crisis. I just finished a study of the Crash of 2008 -- Is There Life After Capitalism? -- published by State of Nature. I think you'll enjoy it. http://www.stateofnature.org/isThereLifeAfter.html#next
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