12-03-07, 10:44 am

The end of 2007 has proven to be rather disturbing for France's newly elected president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Unlike 1995, when the powerful general strikes of November and December erupted against Prime Minister Alain Juppé’s plans to directly attack the social welfare system, workers’ pay and retirement benefits (and Juppe’s approach stood in sharp contrast to President Jacques Chirac’s campaign theme of 'mending the social fracture”), things in 2007 seem much clearer.

Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), was elected President in May 2007 on the basis of an aggressively anti-social-welfare program. The formation of his government, led by current Prime Minister François Fillon (UMP) – the initiator of the retirement system 'reforms' of 2003 that precipitated a wave of strikes – did not leave any doubt. The class war had been formally announced and everyone was expecting a new period of social conflict.

The conflict began precisely on October 18, with a day of strikes and huge mobilizations. More than 300,000 workers from the public as well as private sector demonstrated together – workers in transport, energy, metallurgy, chemistry, health, education, and culture – even the employees of McDonald’s! – united in defense of public services, employment, and the purchasing power of workers’ pay and pensions.

The strike was particularly strong in the sectors singled out in Sarkozy’s governmental project of attacking the so-called 'special retirement entitlements' of workers in SNCF (railroads), RATP (subways), and EDF-GDF (electricity and gas utilities). In fact, this reform is widely seen as the necessary precondition for the complete dismantling of the general system of pensions by 'repartition' (defunding).

The fronts of struggle quickly multiply

On October 25, the cabin crews at Air France, whose productivity is going up but whose purchasing power is going down, struck to gain wage increases. They shut down over a quarter of the airline's flights for nearly a week. At the same time, the per annum remuneration of the CEO of the airline rose to $1.75 million (not counting all the other 'advantages').

For several weeks, college and high-school students had already been mobilizing against the law on 'freedoms and responsibilities of the universities' proposed by the Minister for Higher Education, Valérie Pécresse. This law gives control of public colleges and universities to private companies. The strikes closed many schools including the Sorbonne in Paris.

These actions were soon joined by workers in education and health, then by the post office, France Telecom, and museum workers, along with the performing artists of the Comedie Francaise and the Opera – whose programmes announced that some productions would be held 'with costumes, but without stage decorations.' After that, even the tobacconists went out on strike, who were soon joined by workers in the Middle Eastern coffee houses that feature the hookah.


Among the hardest-fought conflicts, which actually witnessed some violence perpetrated by the police, were the November mobilizations by the country’s lawyers and judges, who are opposed to the closing of many courts for budgetary reasons. Other significant protests involved the merchant marine and fishermen, threatened by sharp increases in the price of diesel fuel.

Paralleling these events, resistance to rising government anti-immigrant repression continued. This repression is mainly directed against undocumented immigrants, and is led by Brice Hortefeux, the director of the newly created Immigration and National Identity Ministry. Sometimes the spirit of revolt was mixed with shame. In Lille, the police seized immigrant hunger strikers in the hospital where they were being cared for, so they could throw them in jail.

The conflicts increased in intensity on November 14, with the start of a huge strike by rail and transportation against the assault on their retirement benefits, which Sarkozy calls “special privileges.” The Sarkozy-Filon government intends to compel the workers in the SNCF, RATP, and EDF-GDF unions to work longer (by raising the retirement limit from 37.5 to 40 years on the job) in order to end up earning less, since their relatively meager pensions are only equal to 50-75% of their salaries while working. In response, the vast majority of workers walked out for eight days, paralyzing the transportation network.

The situation is quite different for the very rich. Some examples of the pensions of the top bosses of French companies are the US $1,150,000 per year for the head of Peugeot, $1,300,000 for the head of Renault, $1,450,000 for the CEO of Lafarge, the world's largest cement company, $1,600,000 for the chief at EADS (the “defense” and aerospace giant), $3,000,000 at Vinci (construction), and a whopping $4,950,000 for the well-groomed head of L’Oréal, not to mention various other perks such as 'indemnities' and share-options. Now that’s a plundering of the retirement system!

A firm link was forged between these strikes and the subsequent civil service workers’ strike, leading to a Solidarity March of more than 700,000 demonstrators on November 20 in Paris. At this point, In the face of the reactionary Sarkozy government’s pro-big-business and hard-line class positions, the trade-union leadership needed to recognize their clear responsibility to press for a convergence of these struggles towards a larger, 'inter-professional' movement, well organized and ready to go on the offensive.

When the “heads of Europe” are preparing to impose a new version of the EEC constitutional treaty (rejected by a massive French 'non' vote in the referendum of May 2005), now is the time to consolidate the unity of the movements against policies of social regression. However, what happened instead was the acceptance by most trade-union leaders, including Bernard Thibault of the left-led CGT, of opening negotiations on a company-by-company basis.

Such an option carries a clear risk of compromising the opportunity that today exists for building a united common front for the defense of France’s pension and social welfare systems. But now a divergence has occurred between these trade-union leaders, anxious to merely 'sweeten” the government’s neoliberal attack, and their own rank-and-file base, who are demanding a broader and deeper radicalization of their struggle. Following the defeat of the Left in the May 2007 presidential elections, these divisions may again unfortunately cost us victory.

In the meantime, the divisions have already resulted in a setback. The return to work in the transport sector was effective on November 26 in the entire country. The offer of some 'wage increases' in the transportation sector, coupled with Sarkozy’s stubborn firmness in pursuing his reactionary 'reforms”, makes the final outcome of the ongoing, tripartite negotiations between the unions, the employers, and the government uncertain.

One thing, however, is very clear: The strikers were on the front line in the defense of all working people.

POSTSCRIPT: On November 25, the day before the suspension of the strike in the transport sector, the specter of a renewed uprising in the poor suburbs appeared, marked by violent disturbances caused by the death of two young people (15 and 16 years old) in a motorbike accident, after they were rammed by a police car and left without medical care. The incident occurred in the suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, near the epicenter of the civil unrest in October and November of 2005.

--Rémy Herrera is a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research and teaches at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.