Dave Stockton<\/i><\/p>\n
Millions of French workers have put up tremendous resistance to President Sarkozy\u2019s attack on their pension rights in a wave of intense strikes and marches \u2013 but now the battle has reached a turning point.<\/p>\n
With the strategy of successive one-day strikes having failed to force Sarkozy to back down, and with a key strike in the oil refineries beginning to crumble, the movement has only two alternatives: slowly wind down and hand the bosses a big victory, or go forward to an all out general strike that can bust the pension law, bring down Sarkozy and set the European resistance to cuts on fire.<\/p>\n
Danger<\/p>\n
The reason French workers are suddenly staring the possibility of defeat in the face is the fatally flawed strategy of the leaders of the trade unions \u2013 including the Socialist Party aligned CFDT and the more militant CGT led by the Communist Party.<\/p>\n
The turnaround seems sudden. Protests on 28 October saw another two million people on the streets, for the seventh time since the movement began on 7 September. Yet the next day saw a return to work by port workers at France\u2019s main oil terminals, and workers also went back at the last five striking oil refineries including Grandpuits near Paris. In Paris demo numbers fell from 330,000 to 170,000.<\/p>\n
This could be because of school holidays but it is probably also two other things \u2013 the pension law has now been passed, and the less determined of the protesters are starting to tire of a process that seems to be bringing no results.<\/p>\n
Successive one day protests are not working. The CGT strategy is based on strikes and blockades by the most militant of the unions plus weekly mass demonstrations and big one-day national strikes.<\/p>\n
But this has not been enough to force Sarkozy to the negotiating table \u2013 because the government and the capitalists mean business and are determined to force this through, so that the even bigger cuts plan they have in store is not stalled at the first hurdle.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the trade union leaders\u2019 real objective has been to force Sarkozy to negotiate, whereas most union members\u2019 aim has been to force him to drop the pension attack completely. The leaders\u2019 strategy relied using only the key strongholds of the CGT \u2013 the ports, transport and power workers \u2013 to bring Sarkozy to his senses, rather than an all-out indefinite general strike to bring him to his knees.<\/p>\n
When Sarkozy refused to back down the union leaders had no idea what to do. They treat the very idea of a full-scale indefinite general strike as unthinkable. The reason? They know that this would pose the question: who rules France \u2013 Sarkozy or the workers? And both the social democrats of the CFDT and the Stalinists of the CGT leadership are ideologically committed to one overriding idea: the working class must not make a social revolution and take power into its own hands.<\/p>\n
So in the end they have nothing beyond their tried, tested and \u201csuccessful\u201d strategy for letting off steam and then winding down struggles via repeated \u201cdays of action.\u201d Under mass pressure, in September, they increased the tempo to weekly mobilisations and the CGT kept the strikes going in the refineries. But when the massive success of these mobilisations posed the need for all out action in October, they stubbornly refused to go forward. They decided to \u201csnatch defeat from the jaws of victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
France\u2019s workers face a critical moment. The unions have called another day of action for 6 November. Militants must do all they can to make it a major success, because if the movement does not resume its forward march it will decline and eventually collapse. But there is still time \u2013 just. Victory can still be snatched from the jaws of defeat.<\/p>\n
Public opinion remains solidly behind the movement and against Sarkozy \u2013 more than 70 per cent back the protests. But the demonstrators need to direct their demands on the union leaders and insist they call for an all out, indefinite general strike. Not just the most militant activists but the big battalions of the organised and unorganised workers must be brought onto the field of battle. This could checkmate Sarkozy.<\/p>\n
Strategy<\/p>\n
The present impasse highlights another problem with the union leaderships\u2019 false strategy: they oppose forming co-ordinations, or delegate-based committees to co-ordinate action at local level, for fear of giving the rank and file the initiative. Vital as the daily mass meetings (assembl\u00e9s g\u00e9n\u00e9rales) of rail and power supply workers, teachers and school students have been, they are not enough to take the struggle on to a decisive stage. To mobilise an all-out general strike of millions, co-ordinations are needed, councils of delegates elected at the mass meetings in every workplace.<\/p>\n
Councils of delegates are needed to win over the great majority of workers not yet taking action and to prevent the coming sabotage by the union leaderships.<\/p>\n
They have another urgent task too. Persistent police attacks on the blockades at the refineries, and on the youth from the working class and migrant suburbs, shows the need to set up services d\u2019ordres \u2013 large numbers of stewards to protect protests against the police and prevent provocations.<\/p>\n
The task of revolutionary socialists in France is to be the best supporters and builders of the movement, and also to argue within the movement for the tactics necessary to win, or as Leon Trotsky put it, to \u201csay what is\u201d. That means sharply criticising Bernard Thibault of the CGT and Fran\u00e7ois Ch\u00e9r\u00e8que of the CFDT, without diplomatic niceties. And it means breaking the time hallowed French tradition that bars \u201cpolitical interference in the business of the unions\u201d.<\/p>\n
The biggest far left party in France \u2013 the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) \u2013 has been to the fore on the streets and the blockades. But it has not boldly said \u201cwhat is\u201d about the crisis of direction facing the movement. The NPA has mentioned the need for an unlimited general strike but in the most mild and unchallenging way, not as a vital slogan of the day, and not as a direct challenge to the failed strategy of Thibault and Ch\u00e9r\u00e8que.<\/p>\n
When Sarkozy sent in the hated CRS riot police to smash picket lines at the power stations, the NPA\u2019s leading speaker Olivier Besancenot, issued the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cI propose to all the leaders of political parties, associations, trade unions: respond together against this unconscionable assault against the workers\u2019 movement and its rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
New party<\/p>\n
Of course he was right to call for the leaders to act. But he should have said what action he proposed \u2013 an immediate all out general strike, the formation of coordinations in every town and city, the formation of self-defence squads equipped to resist the CRS and in numbers sufficient to repulse them. He should have warned that Thibault, Ch\u00e9r\u00e8que and the other union leaders could not be trusted.<\/p>\n
Besancenot did not. The hard truth is that the NPA is tailing the CGT, not giving a lead, revealing that it is not a revolutionary party but a centrist one, vacillating between reform and revolution.<\/p>\n
Can this change? Yes \u2013\u00a0on one condition, that now, at this critical conjuncture, it breaks from its tailism and diplomacy towards the union leaders and warns that they are selling out the struggle. It should issue a clear action plan which its thousands of militants should fight for in the mass meetings, in factories, offices, schools and universities. They must take the initiative in forming co-ordinations and organising defence squads.<\/p>\n
That way the NPA can live up to the revolutionary promises it made in its draft programme at its founding conference last year. Then \u2013 win or lose in this struggle \u2013 it will grow rapidly as revolutionary party preparing workers for even more decisive struggles ahead.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dave Stockton Millions of French workers have put up tremendous resistance to President Sarkozy\u2019s attack on their pension rights in a wave of intense strikes and marches \u2013 but now the battle has reached a turning point. With the strategy of successive one-day strikes having failed to force Sarkozy to back down, and with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1,17],"tags":[104,15,188],"class_list":["post-2883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-uncategorized","category-working-class-fights","tag-archive","tag-france","tag-strike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2883\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}