Solidarity with striking French workers!

[Scott Marshall <Scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

**EDITORIAL - Solidarity with striking French workers**

(Reprinted from the December 9, 1995 issue of the People's
Weekly World. Maybe reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
For subscription information see below)

French public workers and their private sector allies have
idled much of France in their battle against Prime Minister
Alain Juppe's austerity plan. The French labor movement has
stepped forward and is defending the interests of all French
working people. Polls show that 65 percent of the French
sympathize with the strikers and recognize their vanguard
role.

The Juppe plan bears an eerie resemblance to Newt Gingrich's
Contract on America, slashing France's social security
system to reduce a $64 billion deficit. French workers are
told they must accept lower wages and benefits to remain
"competitive" in the new European Economic Union, just as
U.S. workers are told that under the NAFTA trade deal they
must accept wages and conditions trending down towards
Mexico's. Capitalism everywhere sings the same
"competitiveness" tune, whipsawing workers against each
other to guarantee maximum profits.

Nowhere is capitalism, or its political parties, offering
reforms that will mean a better quality of life for the
people. Instead they demand sacrifices and takeaways as real
income continues a 30-year downward slide.

Yet there is no "sacrifice" for the billionaire high rollers
with their palatial houses, limousines and yachts. Their
greed is boundless. They are drunk with power, convinced
that they have smashed socialism and socialist ideas once
and for all. But it is becoming clear to millions of people
that monopoly capitalism is rotten to the core and must be
replaced by a system that puts people ahead of profits.

The French people are locked in a struggle similar to ours
and deserve our full solidarity. We need new forms of
international solidarity to fight the transnational
corporate pirates.

The French working class has "fired a shot heard 'round the
world." Their message, translated: No to the "Contract on
France." If the French can do it, why can't we?
##30##


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