French Strikers battle 'Contract on France'

by Jim Genova & Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the December 9, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

Half a million striking workers and their student allies staged marches throughout France Tuesday, Dec. 5 as a two- week strike against Prime Minister Alain Juppe's plan to freeze wages and slash health and retirement benefits to eliminate a $64 billion budget deficit escalated.

In Paris, more than 50,000 workers and students marched from Place de la Republique to the St. Lazare railway station, despite a snowstorm and frigid cold, to protest this Newt Gingrich-style "Contract on France."

Jean Solbes, a spokesperson for the International Affairs Department of the French Communist Party, had just returned to his home from the march when we reached him by telephone. "It is freezing cold," he said. "But it was a very good march. It showed that the movement is not slowing down. On the contrary, it is widening. We had busloads of strikers and students who came from the left-wing Paris suburbs to join the march. They were joined by mayors of those towns who wore their tricolor sashes."

The strike began, he said, with a walkout by railway workers. Truckers and mass transit workers also walked out soon followed by postal workers, Department of Taxation and bank workers. "We have a huge participation by the gas and electric utility workers because it is state-owned and Juppe wants to open it up to private capital in accordance with the Maasticht Agreement," Solbes said, referring to a so- called European trade agreement similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Solbes said doctors, nurses, and other health care workers will walk out Thursday. The French school teachers union also called for a demonstration Thursday by teachers and youth against Juppe's plans to reduce funding for public education.

Despite negative and provocative anti-worker coverage in the French media, polls show that sympathy for the strikers has gone up from 55 percent to 65 percent, Solbes continued. French President Jacques Chirac has kept a low profile while anger mounts against Juppe. "Chirac is in a very difficult position," said Solbes. "He was elected after a very demagogic campaign in which he said workers have to have jobs and higher wages. Now that he is in office, he must prove that he will obey the Maastricht Agreement and the European Bank by doing just the opposite."

Among the decisions that have stirred outrage is the plan to increase the retirement age by three-and-a-half years; a plan to terminate rail service on 6,000 kilometers of track throughout France; a plan to eliminate 30,000 hospital beds; to terminate 80,000 jobs; a scheme to limit to once every three years a woman's right to a mammogram and to increase health care co-payments drastically.

"What they propose is to take away what we have gained over the past 50 years," Solbes said. "It is a trip back to the 19th Century. They say we can't afford to have a social security system.They say they will not retreat. We are heading into a harsher confrontation."

He pointed out that Juppe's regime has been so scandal- plagued that he fired his own government recently and name a new one. Juppe was forced to move out of a palatial Paris apartment provided for him virtually free by Chirac. Chirac was shown on French television speaking under a coconut tree from sunny Africa while the struggle raged back home. He informed the French people that the government will not yield to the strikers demands and that they must tighten their belts.

"Juppe spoke on TV tonight and said it is necessary for the people to sacrifice and suffer," Solbes said. "The people reject that. The position of the French Communist Party is that Juppe and Chirac must listen to the people, abandon this austerity plan, and return to the negotiating table."

The strikes, are spearheaded by the communist-led Confederation General du Travail (General Confederation of Labor) joined by a rival labor federation, Force Ouvriere (FO). The strike has been called the biggest and most militant in more than a decade. Marc Blondel, FO leader, said, "This is a radicalization. I am asking all sectors to join in the strike with one goal: the withdrawal of the Juppe plan."

Louis Viannet, leader of the CGT, said that the day of action and the planned expansion of the strike would generate a "shock wave" against the government.

The government plans to privatize France Telecom, the nation's telecommunications system. The government wants to sell 49 percent of the company to Deutsche Telecom (the German communications network) and Sprint (a U.S. telephone company).

"[Minister for post and communications] Fillon's declarations add fuel to the fire. They give us one more reason to protest," said a statement from the SUD union, one of the largest in France Telecom.

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) issued a statement expressing "its complete solidarity with the national protest action by the trade unions and the working people of France." The WFTU said that "while the present government in France is squandering resources on a nuclear arms race (a reference to the nuclear tests France has conducted recently in the Pacific), the same government is proposing solutions to reduce budget deficits by cutting social expenditures and attacking the job security and social security of the working people."

The WFTU appealed to "trade unions in all countries to express their solidarity with the trade union actions in France to defend their hard won gains," right to social security and call upon the French government to cancel its measures to cut down social security and lower living standards."