Class Struggle Only Answer to Sarkozy Racist Anti-Worker Plan
May 14 2007 12:53
This is an article from the most recent CHALLENGE, and I think it's a pretty good discussion piece of what's going down in France. I'm inspired to see the students standing up, and I've talked to a few of my French friends and they're pissed. To quote one of them, "They're turning France into America!" to which I replied that "it's always a race to the bottom with capitalists."
Here's the link: http://plp.org/cd07/cd0523.html#Class%20Struggle%20Only%20Answer%20to%20Sarkozy%20Racist%20Anti-Worker%20Plan
Here's an excerpt:
Quote:
PARIS, May 6 — Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President today. But the real news is that there was no significant difference in the programs of Sarkozy and "socialist" Ségolène Royal. But millions believed that voting for her was a meaningful political act, which strengthened the chains binding them to the capitalist system
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Now, despite French capitalists’ whining, France remains an attractive investment for capital. According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2005 workers in France churned out the most gross domestic product per hour worked in any industrialized country. But the name of the game is not simply profits, but maximum profits, so French capitalists need to cut wages and squeeze more profit out of the working class. Sarkozy will do his utmost to help French bosses do just that.On Aug. 31, 2006, Sarkozy promised the bosses’ association he would abolish the 35-hour work week ("Libération," 9/1/06). His program entitled, "Together, everything is possible," indicates the thin end of the wedge: public hospitals will be "liberated" from the 35-hour week. (Royal told "l’Express" (4/3/07) in an interview that she was willing to compromise on the 35-hour week.)
Quote:
Sarkozy will also impose a guaranteed minimum service in public services, which will gut the effectiveness of any strike. Historically, private sector workers in France have seen strikes by public workers — who cannot be laid off — as defending the interests of all workers.
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The working class here faces a period of sharpening struggle. Reformist illusions — including those peddled by the so-called extreme left — are becoming an unaffordable luxury. Communists need to persuade the millions who voted that the only solution is revolution.
So, there is a feeling of solidarity and mutual struggle forming here, and that's good as internationalism is key to the class struggle and communist revolution. Here's hoping the French prove Kropotkin right and do it again!
May 14 2007 15:54
#2
That sounded well pessimistic. Sorry, I really want something constructive to come out of all of this. Just been talking to my French friends about this in depth and they're pretty much resigned to Sarko's policies.
May 14 2007 16:23
#3
Sarko's policies are not much different to sego's. France has pretty much decided that they need to westernise their economy and Sarkozy has been elected to do that, they think he has the steel to do it.
If French workers can keep up their tradition of militancy then there is some hope although I imagine it will end up like here, with a few militant unions with skilled workers able to fight back and everyone else on the retreat.
May 14 2007 16:23
#4
just an idea; by agreeing to the 'after 1 week a ballot' policy, they'll take the wind out of NS's sails and avoid the scargillite error.
apart from that - aux barricades citoyens!
May 15 2007 13:55
#5
I agree with Jef above, but don't share his pessimism.
The vote was a record since 1965 and the election process itself was a major victory for the bourgeoisie. After a year of campaigning, particularly by leftism and "personalities", 3 million more voters were registered, most of them young.
The left supported Chirac in 2002 against the bogeyman Le Pen, just like leftism made way for Hitler through the "democratic process". The "brutal right" of Sarkozy is in line with that of Thatcher and Blair in relation to the needs of capitalism's attacks on the working class. Not that the left is any further behind in attacking the workers, au contraire. Mitterand and the PS/PC "cohabitation" unleashed attack after attack on jobs, conditions and the social wage, and later it was the left that initiated the attack on pensions and implemented measures to lessen job security. Sarkozy will continue these same attacks in continuity with the left and the right but the deepening of the economic crisis worldwide make them more essential for the French bourgeoisie. This is the imperative of capital whatever clique is in power and some of Royal's policies gave us a glimpse of that. It is the whole bourgeoisie that has won the French election.
The role of leftism and Trotskyism was, as always, instructive. they called for workers to submit to the bourgeoisie with the same old mystifications: "vote to protest", "vote to put on pressure", "express your anger", etc, etc,... and of course, the cry of apologists for capitalist democracy everywhere, the French Trotskyists called for an "anti-Sarkozy referendum", a "vote for the lesser evil", this time "anti-liberalism" - a variation on the time honoured bourgeois mystification of "anti-fascism".
See Revolution Internationale no.379
The student movement really has no leverage at all. Exams are in like a week and there's already huge swathes of students retaking exams from last year's upheaval over CPE. Basically it's reaching a situation of who's rich enough to have a 5 year degree.