France - March 23rd, 2018
The class war has begun
French imperialism deepens the attack against the working class...
With a huge day of strikes and mobilizations workers fight back
Let French May return!
Last Thursday, March 22, hundreds of thousands of railroad workers, employees, students, retired workers, teachers, health and transport workers won again the streets all over France, in a day of struggle against the attack of the French imperialist government.
Seven state unions (CGT, FO, FSU, CFTC, Solidarires, FA-FP and CFE-CGC) were forced to call the mobilization, even though they refused to do so until the last minute. Among Railways workers only four of these unions (CGT, UNSA, Sud-Rail, CFDT, with support from FO) called a strike against railway reform.
French imperialism onslaughts all the conquests of the French working class. First Hollande with the reform of the Labour Code, then Macron with the decrees deepening that reform, today with lay-off in the state and the privatization of the railways.
Great French bosses are coming for everything
An attack all along the line is currently taking place against public servants and private sectors as well.
Now the bosses and their government are prepared to reduce the staff and therefore dismiss and close establishments, as in Ford, PSA, Carrefour, Yellow Pages and others. What will increase unemployment in both sectors, will cut down wages, worse working conditions and deteriorate public services. All those actions with the aim of "reducing the fiscal deficit." French imperialism needs slave workers so that the bourgeoisie can compete in better conditions and thus achieve an exceptional location in Europe to face the EU commercially. This fierce attack is joined by the constant persecution of activists, social activists and keeping imprisoned fighters for the Palestinian cause like Georges Abdallah.
Así el imperialismo francés sigue profundizando la flexibilización laboral con la que busca hacer trabajar a sus obreros de la metrópolis bajo las mismas condiciones de explotación que impone en sus colonias y con las que trabajan los obreros inmigrantes al interior de Francia. En febrero, el parlamento agregó una enmienda a la sexta ordenanza que modifica el código de trabajo, gracias a la cual la patronal puede a partir de ahora imponer a sus empleados el régimen laboral que toma como medida no las horas semanales trabajadas sino las jornadas al año. Con este régimen el patrón puede hacer trabajar a sus obreros cuando lo necesite, hasta 6 días de corrido con jornadas de 13 horas (¡es decir 78 horas en una semana!) compensado luego con días de reposo, cuando la patronal no necesita producir.
The reform of the state means eliminating 120,000 jobs in the public sector, in the next four years, including voluntary retirement, introducing the payment of salaries based on good performance. In the railways the attack lies in eliminating the railroad collective agreement in which workers have a life contract (job stability), automatic annual salary increases and early retirement (thanks to the special regime). And by means of decrees Macron wants to transform the railway into anonymous society, namely privatize it. This reform is a blow to all workers who will suffer the consequences in the public service. And in addition, if this attack happens on the railroads it will give green light to deepen the offensive to the other sectors that depend on the state.
Thus French imperialism keeps deepening the labour flexibility to make its workers in the metropolis work under the same conditions of exploitation that it imposes in its colonies and the way immigrant workers work in France. In February, the parliament added an amendment to the sixth ordinance modifying the labour code, thanks to which employers can now impose on their employees the labour regime that takes as a measure not the weekly hours worked but the days at year. With this regime the employer can make his workers work when he needs it, up to 6 days running with days of 13 hours (that is, 78 hours in a week!) Later compensated with off days, when the employer does not need to produce.
French imperialism, with Macron’s government, must defeat its own working class, snatch all its conquests to go to new adventures and offensives against the oppressed peoples of the world and to increase labour productivity in the midst of trade war that has been unleashed the different imperialist powers.
The working class has deployed enormous forces in combat all these years, which at each step was betrayed by the Stalinist bureaucracy of the CGT and other trade union, which have been responsible for dividing and disorganizing the attacks of the masses since they staged a huge fight against the attack to the 36 working hours per week in 2016. To each attack of the capitalists, the working class responded with generalized combats and an enormous predisposition to fight. The leaderships prevented the opening of the road to victory.
On March 22 180 demonstrations were held throughout the country with hundreds of thousands of protesters (200 thousand for the state and 500 thousand for the CGT), more than 50 thousand in Paris; in Nantes there were clashes between the youth and the police that repressed with tear gas.
There was a massive strike of railway workers who canceled 60% of the service, organizing themselves in assemblies and with the hard strike pickets, voting to stop two days out of five from now; the electricity and gas workers also went on strike, lowering production; teachers and workers from public hospitals also complained about the freezing of salaries and budget and lay-offs; strikes hit airports in Paris, with flights cut by a third, while other services were canceled in Montpellier, Nice and Marseille; Air France workers have already announced a second claiming for wages.
On March 22, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of French May '68, the student movement seeks to follow that path
The students, joining the struggle of the railroads and state workers, protested against the reform of university admission, blocking high schools and faculties with barricades, particularly in the eastern and northern areas of Paris, where the young children of immigrants will be the most affected by the reform. Several universities in the country, such as Montpellier, suspended classes and called assemblies to decide how to continue the mobilization against educational reform.
On March 22, the youth expressed that they felt the climate of May '68. On March 22, 1968, the students of the Faculty of Nanterre decided to occupy the administration of the faculty, a fact that was the starting point of the movement that in the month of May paralyze France for weeks.
Unfortunately, this huge strike of the public sector was separated from the private sector, since the trade union did not call for a day of unified general strike to confront the bosses and their government. Now the CGT only calls for an "inter-professional mobilization" for April. And in railroad workers a two-day strike over five that will last three months! With these measures they wear down, divide sector by sector to the working class. This is not the way to stop such an attack!
Mientras los que tienen influencia en los sindicatos e incluso dirigen organizaciones obreras como el NPA saben -tal como ellos mismos lo expresan- que “ el gobierno desea una confrontación global, a fin de infligir ( al movimiento obrero NDT) una derrota de amplitud que le permita pasar un fin del quinquenato sereno y principalmente ejecutar una nueva reforma de las jubilaciones”( Periódico del 22-3-18) plantean que la situación de hoy no es lo que ocurría en el Mayo francés, que aun los trabajadores tienen que lograr “conciencia política y confianza en sus propias fuerzas”. Pues aunque los “trabajadores expresan bronca, están lejos de poder desbordar a los aparatos” En resumidas cuentas, dicen que no hay condiciones para desarrollar una “Huelga de masas”-consigna que ellos levantan-, porque los trabajadores no están a la altura de las circunstancias!¿Ycómo pueden los trabajadores desbordar a “los aparatos” cuando lasdirecciones que se autodefinencomo antiburocráticas e independientes los sostienen? Tal como lo hicieron en 2016 acallando la traición de la burocracia. ¡Basta de engañar a los trabajadores! ¡Los explotados franceses demuestran que a pesar y en contra de sus direcciones, solos, divididos sector por sector, siguen combatiendo, mientras las direcciones que tienen a su frente le ponen palos en la rueda en su combate!
French "anti-capitalists" and the radical left,
as always beyond Stalinism and the union bureaucracy
While those who influence the unions and even lead labour organizations like the NPA know -as they themselves express it- that "the government wants a global confrontation, in order to inflict (to the labour movement TN) a defeat of amplitude that let pass an end of the serene five year period and mainly to execute a new pension reform" (newspaper dated on March 22nd, 2018) they suggest that the situation of today is not the same as in the French May, that even workers have to achieve "political conscience and confidence in their own forces." Because, although the "workers express anger, they are far from being able to overwhelm the apparatuses". In short, they say that there are no conditions to develop a "mass strike" -a slogan they even raise- because workers are not up to the task! And how can workers overpass "the apparatuses" when the self-defined leaderships as antibureaucratic and independent supports those apparatuses? As in 2016 saying nothing about bureaucracy’s betrayal. Enough deceiving the workers! The French exploited proved that despite and against their leaderships, alone, divided sector by sector, they keep fighting, while the leaderships they have put sticks on the wheel in their combat!
En Francia la clase obrera mundial protagoniza una de sus grandes batallas contra la flexibilización laboral que quiere imponer la oligarquía financiera contra los trabajadores del mundo
¡Los trabajadores de las empresas estatales no pueden quedar peleando solos! Ni se puede enfrentar el ataque fábrica por fábrica. ¡La reforma es contra todo el movimiento obrero de conjunto! ¡Hay que unificar las demandas! Empezando por la defensa de los trabajadores inmigrantes que son el sector más explotado de la clase obrera y que está siendo ferozmente perseguido.¡Papeles, casa,trabajo digno y bajo convenio e igualdad de derechos para todos!
In France, the world working class takes part in one of its great battles against labour flexibilization that financial oligarchy wants to impose against world workers
The workers of the state companies cannot fight alone! The attack cannot be faced factory by factory. The reform is against the labour movement as a whole! The demands must be unified! Starting by defending the immigrant workers, who are the most exploited sector of the working class and who are being fiercely persecuted. Papers, houses, decent work and equal rights for all!
Imperialism wants to impose these same reforms on the entire planet, as shown by its offensive in Latin America, Argentina, Brazil. Before this, French workers like their brothers in Latin America, fight back. There and in France the working class shows its enormous predisposition to combat and remains standing.
Therefore, there are still forces to resume the path undertaken in 2016 to conquer a revolutionary general strike. This fight cannot be left to the trade union bureaucracy, who in 2016 handed over the fight against the El Khomri law at the negotiating table with Hollande’s government and not the hands of the reformist leaderships that sustained it. No confidence in the bureaucracy!
With these leaderships we cannot fight! The strength of the working class lies in the unity of the exploited and their own forces. Let’s take this fight in our own hands to defeat the attack and the government!
Self-organization organisms must be set up, such as strike pickets and factory committees where the employed and unemployed workers are organized, the unionized and the outsourced ones, immigrants and refugees.
National coordinator of the fight organisms to centralize and coordinate this fight!
The allies of the working class of Paris and France are his brothers from Algeria, Chad, Mali and from all the colonies and semi-colonies that French imperialism plunders.
Millions of immigrant workers are forced to work in illegal conditions and without papers. They have been flexibilized for a while. The future of the conquests of the working class in France, as in all of Europe, depends on the extent to which the workers movement manages to unify its ranks to fight against the capitalist offensive.
Because the goal of the big bosses is transforming the French and European working class into immigrants and slave workers in their own land.
In France: a single working class! Full rights to immigrants! Equal pay for equal work! Papers for everyone now! Immigrants are already flexibilized and now they come for everyone. We are all immigrants!
Forward with the worker-student unity defending of public and free education!
For general assemblies to vote a single list of demands and a unified struggle plan! Down with labor reform and all the ordinances of Macron!
Down with the Government of Macron! Out with the Fifth Republic of the French imperialist pirates!
In France and throughout Europe, from Portugal to the Russian steppes: the same enemy, the same working class! Down with the imperialist Maastricht!
A great fight must be prepared. It is necessary to open the way to a hot May that transforms the streets of France into a hell for those at the top: Revolutionary General Strike!
Let the Frent May of ‘68 and its worker-student unity return, together with the refugees, without papers!
Correspondent
