Ninth day of action confronts Sarkozy’s austerity

French workers took to the streets again on Oct. 19. It was their ninth day of action since September and their fourth general strike in a month; these strikes have involved as many as 3 million workers at a time.

A general strike on Oct. 12 scheduled to last one day became an unlimited strike in some sectors, especially by public transport workers, truckers and refinery workers. They have stopped or impeded much transportation in the country — truckers drive at a snail’s pace on the highways and gas stations run dry.

A key element in the week before this latest general strike has been the growing presence of high-school youth in the struggle. Hundreds of schools were closed down and young people have been joining the demonstrations. In some of the 260 cities affected on Oct. 19, confrontations have taken place between reactionary President Nicolas Sarkozy’s police and the youth, notably in Lyon.

The key issue is still the attempt by Sarkozy and his allies in Parliament to impose an austerity program on the workers, starting off with an increase in the retirement age. This has infuriated the French workers at a time when there has been persistent high unemployment and especially because young people are unable to find stable jobs protected by a work contract. This issue has united older workers with the young and has won over most of those in-between.

The central point involves the government’s plan to increase the beginning age for retirement from 60 to 62 years and the age at which workers can get a full pension from 65 to 67. There are also new requirements for the number of years employed.

While U.S. workers may react that this seems good compared to current U.S. requirements for retiring and receiving Social Security, the workers in France earned these benefits in struggle and they won’t give them up without a fight.

According to the French Institute of Public Opinion, 71 percent of the public in France has supported the strikers. More than 42 percent of the population consider the strike and other struggle actions of the unions “absolutely justified” and would support their extension in the coming days. Especially committed to this struggle are disadvantaged women, 75 percent of whom back the strike, and young people between the ages of 18 and 24, of whom the whopping figure of 84 percent support the strikers. (ifop.com)

There is growing working-class anger over Sarkozy’s policies because he has also pushed for a “protective shield” that sets a limit to the taxes imposed on France’s super-rich. Workers rightfully can see that they will have to work earlier and longer in order to retire, with fewer years of retirement, while the rich can retire even earlier.

When Sarkozy laid down this utter provocation to the working class, he first made a racist attack on Roma (Gypsy) immigrants, forcing them to return to Romania on French planes. He apparently hoped that this assault on an even more oppressed grouping would distract the workers from their own struggle and provide a scapegoat.

Sarkozy isn’t the first to try this “divide and conquer” tactic. From the U.S. to Western and Central Europe, right-wingers are targeting immigrants and Muslims, among others. But in Sarkozy’s case the ploy failed. Sections of French workers have even raised slogans of solidarity with the Roma people, and no one was distracted from the class struggle.

The French Assembly voted to support Sarkozy’s attempt to increase the retirement age. The Senate votes sometime before Oct. 23, although it has to deal with 400 amendments the opposition added. Sarkozy and his allies’ pose indicates that the French capitalists are determined to challenge the workers. The strikes, on the other hand, as well as the mood indicated by the opinion poll and the militancy of the youth, show that the workers are determined to fight to defend their benefits.

It has been a tradition in French history that the class struggle, once it bursts into the open, goes much further toward completion than in other European countries. This was true with the 1789-1793 revolution, with the Paris Commune of 1871 and the general strikes of 1936 and 1968. It is worth watching to see if the class struggle against austerity, begun so heroically by the workers in Greece this year, is spreading to a large and powerful imperialist country. And to wonder what impact it will have this side of the Atlantic.

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