Yesterday, Tuesday 28th, three million people took to the streets in a massive show of strength against de Villepin and the government’s attempt to bring in the CPE. LFI members where there from Britain to experience the movement first hand, alongside our French comrades.
Our day started with the problem of how to get into Paris to join the demo. A partial general strike had been called by the five trade union federations. It was partial, in the sense that not every sector was called out, but it was “general” in the sense that it was a political strike, aimed at forcing the government to withdraw the CPE.
As a result, there were no trains running, rather than the two an hour you would usually expect on a strike day. Never mind, we went by car — and parked just around the corner from Kremlin Bicêtre, where we stayed during the ESF 2004.
The demo congregated in Place d’Italie. The unions had points fixées, with giant balloons, moored above them: CGT 93, FO 77, SUD 94, etc. The unions were mobilised by federation and by region (postal code). A few were congregating, but we were early.
Along the Bd de l’Hôpital — and, yes, the hospital was on strike! – the students were also gathering, these in larger numbers and already chanting slogans led by big PA systems, mounted on the backs of trucks. Again, the students were organised by union federations — which mirrored the unions in that they were Socialist Party, CP or Christian democratic, etc.
But there was at least one very large contingent, which came from 93 (the main banlieues of Paris are 92, 93, 94 and a few others; that everyone calls them by number demonstrates a slight alienation to the English ear, bit like Stalag 13, but there is genuine pride among the different communities). This contingent had workers, unemployed youth, students and lycéens (school students) among them.
Also along the Boulevard the left groups had their stalls. It was noticeable that the workers had brought leaflets about their own struggles: many against privatisation.
One was from Gaz de France, the partially privatised gas workers. The government agreed to shelve full-scale privatisation and guarantee majority state ownership three years ago, but now it has merged with Suez the huge international water and energy corporation, and is threatening to slash jobs and conditions. A link up is possible here with the Bolivian and South African movements, where Suez has been active doing the same thing.
We interviewed some of the youth, though we were not very adept at understanding the answers to the questions we had carefully prepared the day before! Nevertheless, we got a flavour of the lycéen movement, talking to some 15 year olds in their third week of occupation already — the longest are six weeks in duration. Everyone was excited and bouncing with energy.
We started marching around 1.45pm, still among the youth. The chants were too many to recount, though all of them were chants, rather than that strange monotone that the British deliver our slogans in ( Revolution excluded of course). They are sung, every one of them. Here’s two I can remember: “A ceux — qui veulent — précariser les jeunes — les jeunes répondent – RE-SIS-TANCE” and “de Villepin — tu es foutu (fucked) — la jeunesse — est dans la rue".
As we weaved our way through the throngs, we were struck by two things after being on many French demos over the years. First the youth: many were clearly as young as 13, full-throated and militant, marching together, not with their parents. And there were tens, hundreds of thousands of them. We marched with them for four hours, with one lengthy stop in place de Bastille.
Secondly, we were struck by the numbers of youth of Arab, African and Caribbean origin, who must have made up a quarter of the numbers, a higher proportion of the really young, perhaps. This was not evident in the 1980s and 1990s. They seemed fully integrated in the lycéens and to a lesser extent into the student movement, i.e. they were not hanging around at the edges and didn’t come late and simply for a riot with the police.
Two things may be partly responsible. First the CPE will hit the black and Arab youth very hard. And first too the technical colleges and lycées were the first to be occupied, because the students there will have to get jobs now or in the next two years. The law is aimed at creating a pool of cheap and cheaply disposed of young workers. And the cheapest and most disposable is black.
Second, I think the uprising of the black and Arab (and partially white) youth from the banlieues in November has given them confidence and politicised them. They got on the news, in the papers, people started to take note of their conditions and even talk about it having to change. Certainly not all the changes proposed are progressive, and recent polls show an increase in the numbers of French people describing themselves as racist (a third!) However, these extremely oppressed youth have entered the stage of history, and many are now fighting politically.
We got our first whiff of tear gas just after we crossed the Seine. A contingent of sans papiers passed by the first large group of CRS (4,000 riot police on duty) and broke into a chant of “Police partout — justice nulle part", a few short baton charges and the clac clac clac of gas canisters being shot into the crowd. Everyone ran fast in all directions; they knew what that meant, and so did we.
You have to say that Napoleon the Third didn’t half create a lot of space for a riot. The wide pavements of the boulevards, the gigantic squares, like Bastille and de la République, were made for big battles. And when we arrived at the latter, one was kicking off.
Our final part of the day was to get to the LCR rally just in time to hear their young postal worker and 2002 presidential candidate, Olivier Besancenot, was speaking. A good orator, he was their last and main speaker on the platform.
The LCR have shifted to the left under the force of the movement. They now call for a general strike, Besancenot even criticised the 2004 strategy of a day here and a day there, i.e. he called for an indefinite strike. They also call for organisation from below, something they missed out on in 2004, the last big movement (over teachers conditions and public sector pensions). And they have six listed demands: 800euros grants for students and lycéens; one standard contract of employment for all (also a PCF demand); making sacking of workers illegal (!); the right to organise, including the unemployed; 300,000 new health service jobs and 90,000 in education; an end to social segregation (though no mention of racism — Besancenot didn’t even mention the banlieues once).
It is important to note that the LCR, the only group with sufficient weight capable of giving an anti-bureaucratic lead, is TAILING the movement, picking up slogans of self-organisation and the general strike which were evident from several groups on the demo and popular from our own small-scale agitation, but GUTTING THE SLOGANS OF ANY REVOLUTIONARY CONTENT.
The anti-CPE movement is bigger than 1995, despite there not being a general strike, in other respects bigger even than 1968: certainly with regard to the really young youth and the second and third generation immigrant communities. This is an enormous crisis for the government.
The ruling class is clearly divided: in fact, Villepin looks completely isolated, a man hanging out to dry. Sarkozy has been playing a very clever game, giving a speech “for a social France” on Monday, not fully supporting the CPE, hinting at criticism of Villepin — but, at the same time, going out of his way to congratulate the CRS for their handling of the situation yesterday: soft cop, hard cop all in one! Vote for me, and I’ll introduce the neoliberal measures in a way that they’ll stick.
Even MEDEF (the French CBI) are today calling for the suspension of the CPE. And it is possible that the constitutional court will throw it back this Friday; in fact quite a convenient way for Chirac to diffuse the situation.
The students and lycéens are clearly in the vanguard. There are 70 out of 280 universities in occupation and about 600 or more lycées out of 4,000. They had a national coordination last weekend and have called for a general strike on 4th April, for road, motorway and railway blockades on Thursday. This coordination reconvenes this weekend in Lille.
Revolutionaries need to agitate now for a general strike, unlimited, to start 4th April; that corodinations, involving the unemployed, workers unions as well as the sudent/lycéens movement, need to organise this as well as being a demand on the leaders of the unions.
The general strike should not to limit itself to the withdrawal of the CPE (almost inevitable now) nor to the LCR’s list of demands, but should pose the question of power.
• Down with Chirac, Villepin and Sarkozy!
• For a workers and small farmers government!
• For coordinations in every town, banlieu and city, and nationally, with delegates representing all those in struggle, to lead the movement to victory and to keep the pressure on the hesitating and timid union leaders.
• For DemonstrationsAcross Europe in solidarity with the French workers and youth, bring forward all the struggles on wages pensions and privatisation into a pan European movement and take action “tous ensemble".