IWL Declaration On The Situation In France
NO TO FEC (CPE)
Our full support to the struggle of the French young people and the workers
On Saturday, 18th March, over a million and a half demonstrators moved all all France to reject the so-called FEC (First Employment Contract) passed by the government of the president Jacques Chirac and the FirstMinister Dominique de Villepin. In Paris alone ther were almost 400 000 people. During some confrontations with the police 167 people were arested and 52 were wounded, among them a trade union man representing post office workers who is now hospitalised in coma.
Demonstrations against PCR began on February 7 February when about 200 000 young people walked out into the streets and the numbers kept on growing. The advanceguard of this struggle are high school and uiversity students and they have paraysed most of the 82 universities of the country and 300 high schools. It is within this framework that Students’ National Coordination has been formed with representatives of fighting universities and schools
Many teachers and lecturers joined this “initial batallion” and so di young offsprings of immigrants and finally the workers, many of them parents of the young people who started the protest. It is no coincidence that young people should be the advanceguard of this struggle: the unemployment rate among the under-26 is almost 22% (almost three times the national average) and in some immigrant suburbs it reaches 40% of that fringe.
What is the FEC?
The FEC (First Employment Contract) was passed in the Parliament without a debate or voting in the Parliament.as a part of a pack aimed at – allegedly – diminishing unemployment among the young. The FEC allows the employer to take up people under 26 and dismiss them with no cause or indemnity simply by presenting the notice 15 days ahead. At the same time, if the new worker had been jobless 6 months before the contract, the company is free from liability for socials costs. That is why the FEC was soon dubbed “Contract of Eternal Precariousness” or “Contracts for Slaves”.
Far from trying to reduce juvenile unemployment, the FEC is the spearhead of the French bourgeois imperialist offensive in search of turning labour conditions even more precarious and dismantling a whole set of achievements that the French working class has defended rigorously: 35-hour week, unemployment insurance and the CDI (Undetermined duration Contract). The project is to replace the CDI by a “sole contract”, much more precarious.
Certainly, this character of “spearhead” that the FEC has and the massive nature of the protest led the trade unions centrals (CGT, led by CP, Workers Force and others) to summon all the students’ organisations for a demonstration and strike of public services for March 28. Transport workers have already manifested their agreement and the protest can actually turn into a general strike against the FEC and a new headway for the struggle. It is necessary to warn everybody that the trade union centrals and some of the students’ organisations, such as UNEF, have just joined the struggle and that alliance is due, up to a great point to the intention of negotiating an agreement with the government.
Stormy weather in France
French imperialist bourgeoisie, the same like her peers in the rest of Europe, are in great need to attack and dismantle such achievements in order to reduce costs and so be able to compete not only with each other but also jointly with USA. But each time they managed to advance in that direction, the French bourgeoisie collided against the resistance of the French workers and toiling masses. Lately general strikes, students’ strikes, riots in the suburbs and the triumph of the NO to the European Constitution have halted or hampered those attempts and that is how the crisis of the French political regime was spawned. And yet, they have no choice but to attack over and over again and so cause new collisions that deepen the situation more and more.
The situation of the country has been very well described by Larissa, a student of the Sorbonne, when she said, “The rage and the hatred drive us together. It could have been the FEC or any other thing because there is ire in France. That is why the suburbs explode, we vote NO to the European Constitution and now more than a million people are against the FEC. It is a state of mind that has overwhelmed the streets and if the government gives us no answer, I do not know how all this will end.” (Clarin, 19/3/06).
And so it is in Europe
The French situation is probably the most advance on the continent, but it is certainly no exception. True as it is that in other countries the bourgeoisies and the governments have advance a little more with the making labour more precarious, they still need to deliver further blows for the same reasons we have detailed for France. Here and there, however, they run up against great difficulties. On the one hand, the NO to the European Constitution in France and Holland, was a sever blow to the attempt at legalising all those attacks on the workers on the whole continent. On the other hand, the also have to tackle a strong resistance in their own countries: There are strong strikes in Italy; in Spain a tough struggle against labour flexibilisation is looming over the horizon; in Germany, the bourgeoisie advances very slowly in order to avoid head-on collision with the workers. Lastly, in many countries, popular opposition against the occupation of Iraq has hit the administrations that had formed the alliance with Bush: Aznar fell in Spain, the Berlusconi administration is dying away in Italy, and Tony Blair is left very much weaker in Great Britain. The conclusion is that great confrontations are ominously present and the “battle of the FEC is part of that landscape.
Mind the government’s trap
So far the Villepin government has been firm about refusing to withdraw the FEC for that would mean “capitulating to ultimatums”, meaning to mobilisations. The situation of the French government is extremely difficult: to recoil with the FEC would mean a bad defeat and a weakening that would most likely lead to his fall, but to maintain it up to the last may make the whole country burst.
That is why Villepin said that he was “ready for a dialogue” and a round of negotiations was started between the government and the trade unions and the student’s organisations. But this “dialogue” and these negotiations conceal a trap set by the government: the proposal to modify some of the points of the FEC so that it can be more acceptable in its essentials. At the same time they will try to make these negotiations serve the purpose of dividing and halting the mobilisations and the struggle.
The IWL-FI forewarns not to fall into that trap: all negotiations are to be subject to the continuation of the struggle and consultation of all proposals with the workers and students. The increase in the power of the protest shows that the FEC and the Villepin can be fully defeated. A total triumph of that struggle would mean a hard blow to all the other stacks that the bourgeoisie and the Villepin-Chirac have in store. To achieve such victory it is necessary to upkeep and deepen the unity of students, workers and the youth of the suburbs and build it up until the government is defeated.
The IWL-FI gives full support to this struggle of the French youth and workers. That is why we summon all the youth and all the workers of the world, especially the European ones, to show full solidarity with it. If the Chirac-Villepin administration were forced to recoil with the FEC, it would mean a great defeat of the plan of European imperialism and of all the world imperialist capitalism.
IS of the IWL-FI
International Workers League – Fourth International
São Paulo 23 March 2006.
