The public holiday on 1 May will see big demonstrations across France. Behind the mobilisation lies a picture of rising unemployment and growth of industrial militancy.
There are actually no current figures for unemployment in France... because the Unemployment Agency staff are on strike! Unemployment is expected to reach 10% this year, and 200,000 workers were laid off in the first two months of 2009. But this hides the fact that in inner-city areas youth unemployment has risen by 57%, and many temporary workers have had their hours cut to the point where they are living off 2-300 euros a month.
While the postal service has seen a wave of strikes and several occupations of sorting offices against attacks on terms and conditions, and struggles are spreading through the public sector, from universities to schools to transport, the private sector in France is the area where workers mobilising against the jobs massacre that the bosses are imposing.
There have been nearly a dozen cases of “boss-napping” in French factories, where workers locked managers in their offices for hours or days, to demand that redundancy programmes are withdrawn. There have been many notable successes. After the first such “séquéstrations”, workers at different plants and in different industries have been using this effective tactic, and incidents of boss-napping are now occurring every week or so. The tactic has been taken up by students and junior lecturers who are campaigning against a barrage of neo-liberal reforms in universities.
The grassroots militancy of French workers and youth has not been matched by militancy at the level of union leaderships. Although three million workers came out on strike on the April 19th one-day general strike, union leaders have failed to give direction to the anger of millions of workers and unemployed, with no clear slogans or demands for the strike, and no serious follow-up action.
The growth of industrial militancy, confidence and organisation has been paralleled by a growth in political militancy: the New Anticapitalist Party, launched this year by the revolutionary socialist party the LCR, is reporting that membership is increasing on the rails and in the post. New branches have started at Ford, Renault, Citroën and Peugot plants. With the development of a workers’ party that the French left is uniting around, and with the wave of strikes, workplace occupations and boss-nappings against the capitalist crisis, French workers are, once again, giving a lead to their brothers and sisters across the world.
