French anarchists claim that CPE replacement measures merely "give tax breaks to employers but do not deal with workers' rights" and protest should continue.
French group Alternative Libertaire stated:
Last week, the government decided to "replace" the CPE [Contract of First Employment]. It has been defeated, we must continue the mobilisation, above all in order to achieve the repeal of the so-called "law of equal opportunities" and of the CNE [Contract of New Employment]. The government can talk about "replacing" if it so chooses, what matters is that the CPE has been withdrawn.
The "measures to help young people gain access to jobs" that will replace the CPE are nothing more than a compilation of already-existing measures, which give tax breaks to employers but which do not directly deal with the question of workers' rights.
This is a historic victory. It is a long time since a government has had to bow to a social movement and proves that even the most seemingly inflexible governments can give in under the threat of largescale social conflict. This victory certainly belongs to the university and high-school students, who had to fight practically alone for around 9 weeks.
Since the start, the students called for the withdrawal of the CNE and the whole so-called "law of equal opportunity". This is a law which, among other things, provides for apprenticeships for 14-year-olds, night-time work for 15- to 18-year-old and the suspension of family allowance benefits in cases of truancy, measures that were so far supported solely by the extreme right!
Little by little, this movement has turned into a movement for the general rejection of precariousness and the students have come up with many proposals, notably in terms of the autonomy of young people and democracy in high schools and universities. It is also the right time to express our demands loud and clear.
Today, the blockades have been removed from many universities. The students have understood that that the government is defeated and that it may be prepared to cede on other matters too. It would be incomprehensible for the union leaderships to call for an end to the mobilisation and put off the repeal of the so-called law "of equal opportunities" and of the CNE to further negotiations.
Let's strike while the iron is hot!
Let us transform this victory into a trampoline for mobilisation and continue the struggle until our demands are met!
Alternative Libertaire 11 April 2006
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org
Translation by FdCA-International relations
Comments
Comandante Gringo April
Comandante Gringo
April 19th, 2006 | 5:46 pm
I don’t know what the mass of students and young people in France are thinking right now; but if they follow the natural tendency to quick complacency and demobilization — helped along speedily and urgently by vested interests on both the Right and the “Left” — the neoliberal wolves will be immediately back at the door. And these scum have certainly learned nothing and forgotten nothing: the Chirac regime still stands, and even Sarkozy and de Villepin remain untouched. So how much of a defeat was this for them, then? There must be follow-up and continuing pressure.
Incredibly many struggles have been lost because people got complacent after an initial victory. And that’s an awful, not-so-well-known fact. And so it is not only the right thing to broaden the struggle — it is vital. And how much the french masses understand this is what we have to find out now (but I’m sanguine over even the medium-term).
All over the world we have the same “Left” leaderships short-circuiting real struggle — and hijacking the workers’ power into their own grasping, fat pudgy hands. To the extent that the french masses can go around these gatekeepers — and instead short-circuit THEIR conniving games — then to that extent the masses pose the real question of power to these unacceptable neo-liberal bourgeois regimes.
I wish you all the best — and hope we all join together in the immediate future.