Striking French workers: 'No retreat, no surrender'

by Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the December 16, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

An estimated 2.3 million striking French public sector workers and their allies marched in 89 cities across France Tuesday, as the 19-day strike against Prime Minister Alain Juppe's plan to slash social security, health care and education funding, remained solid.

More than 100,000 workers and students marched in Marseilles, singing the "Internationale" and holding placards demanding that Juppe resign. In Toulouse 90,000 marched and 70,000 in Bordeaux, as well as 50,000 in Le Havre and 40,000 in Rouen.

Jean Solbes, a spokesperson for the International Affairs Department of the French Communist Party (FCP), told the World by telephone from Paris that the actions eclipsed the student-worker protests of 1968 and were the largest demonstrations since the Popular Front protests of 1936. "For many cities, it was the first time there has been a mass demonstration since 1936," he said.

Juppe and ruling circles in France have done their best to foment an angry public backlash against the strikers, Solbes said. "Instead, mass support for the strikers continues to grow. All the polls show majority support for these workers, and this is very evident in the friendly exchanges between strikers and non-strikers on the streets."

The strike grew in numbers Dec. 12, with bank employees as well as airport employees and air traffic controllers joining the strike. Solbes said there is a festive atmosphere with singing, humorous signs, placards, cartoons and a strong mood of fraternity and solidarity. "The government did not succeed in pitting the strikers and non- strikers against each other," Solbes added.

Solbes said rail and mass transit are at a standstill and air travel has been slashed in half with long delays. About 75 percent of elementary and secondary teachers are on strike demanding reversal of Juppe's savage cutbacks in funding for public education.

The demand of the strikers, led by the General Confederation of Labor and the Force Ouviere, is the total withdrawal of the Juppe plan. In a maneuver to divide the unions, Juppe said he would withdraw his plan to raise the retirement age for railway workers, now 50, and would freeze a plan to terminate rail service on 6,000 kilometers of track.

"But the railway workers saw this as a provocation -- an attempt to split the strike by driving a wedge between them and the other public workers," Solbes said. "They have rejected it and demand nothing less than total withdrawal of the Juppe plan."

All eyes in Europe -- and many in the U.S. -- are fixed on the confrontation, Solbes said.

If the French government is forced to withdraw the austerity plan, it will be a severe blow to the Maastricht Agreement on the formation of the European Economic Union. "Maastricht calls for sharp cutbacks in the public sector, reduced social security and welfare benefit programs and privatization of nationalized sectors of the economy," he said. "Withdrawal of the Juppe plan would derail the Maastricht agreement."

That is why the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and international banking circles have been so harsh and determined to crush the strike, he continued. "But the position of Mr. Juppe is getting weaker and weaker. The strike by French workers could give the idea to workers elsewhere in Europe that they can fight back against the Maastricht Agreement and its attack on their living standards."

Solbes said the party is working hard to mobilize solidarity with the strikers. "Christmas is coming, and for these strikers there won't be many presents for the children. So we are doing what we can to help," he said.

The Communist Party USA convened conferences in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles last weekend, linked together by telephone, for a report from CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall, discussing the current labor upsurge in the U.S. Hall hailed the struggle of French workers and called for a resolution of solidarity with the heroic French strikers. It was adopted unanimously and sent to the CGT.