December 9, 2024 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French
The day of mobilization for civil servants [in France] on December 5 was more successful than expected. In the streets, well-attended processions of teachers, legitimately angry at a budget that included major cuts in education, took their place alongside other public-sector professions, such as school cafeteria and nursery workers, refuse collectors, librarians and municipal technical service workers. They were determined not to let go unanswered the aggressive boasting of ex-minister Kasbarian, Elon Musk-style, who intended to apply the worst employer methods to public-sector workers.
The little piggy race for the French Prime Minister seat
The strike came at a time when the government of [Prime Minister] Barnier had just been struck by a vote of no confidence. The extreme right, without which it could not stay in office, finally chose to bring it down, as its support risked costing it too much in electoral terms… The PS (Socialist Party), the PCF (French Communist Party), and the Greens immediately made their offers of service, not embarrassed by the idea of concocting a budget in collaboration with the [center-right] Macronists. And while France Insoumise (reformist-left party) is keeping a distance from the negotiations, not without banking on the alternative institutional solution of an early presidential election, it is France Insoumise all the same that has brought a Socialist Party exhausted by the [former President] Hollande years out of the graveyard.
False solutions from union leaders
Everyone is looking for an institutional solution to the political crisis. But no such solution will resolve the social crisis, with wages too low, layoff plans raining down everywhere – in short, the bosses’ attacks against which we urgently need to resist with our class means, the strike and collective organization.
Sophie Binet, General Secretary of the CGT (General Confederaton of Labor), said at the December 5 demonstration that she wanted “a government that would stand firm,” with whom it would be possible to “work.” The inter-union group issued a press release calling on members of parliament “to put the general interest first.” But what common interest is there between the bosses laying people off and the workers left out to dry? How can we “work” with President Macron, author of two reforms worsening retirement conditions?
There’s only one solution: our mobilization!
Away from all this jumble, some workers are taking up the struggle. At Decathlon (sports gear retailer), employees went on strike to denounce the billion euros in dividends distributed to the Mulliez family, which is laying off 2,400 people at Auchan. At Arkema in Jarrie (Isère), a major chemical company, employees went on strike against job cuts – a joint struggle with a neighboring plant, Vencorex, which has been on strike for 45 days. The bosses fear more than anything that the response will be general and not just company by company.
All opportunities are good to show the only way forward, that of an overall movement to fight back against the employer and government offensive. On December 12, the unions are calling for a one-day strike against layoffs on the one hand, and against the sell-off of the SNCF (national railroad) on the other. On the same day, some public sector workers, encouraged by the success of their strike on the 5th, have decided to mobilize again. These strikes and rallies may be in the minority. But if these workers in struggle take the opportunity to meet on picket lines and in general assemblies, then they will be taking part in the essential task of the day – to overcome the dispersal of struggles.
