French strikers battle 'Contract on France'

[Scott Marshall <Scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

**French strikers battle 'Contract on France'**

(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)

By Jim Genova and Tim Wheeler

Half a million striking workers and their student allies
staged marches throughout France Tuesday, Dec. 5 as a two-
week strike against Prime Minister Alain Juppe's plan to
freeze wages and slash health and retirement benefits to
eliminate a $64 billion budget deficit escalated.

In Paris, more than 50,000 workers and students marched from
Place de la Republique to the St. Lazare railway station,
despite a snowstorm and frigid cold, to protest this Newt
Gingrich-style "Contract on France."

Jean Solbes, a spokesperson for the International Affairs
Department of the French Communist Party, had just returned
to his home from the march when we reached him by telephone.
"It is freezing cold," he said. "But it was a very good
march. It showed that the movement is not slowing down. On
the contrary, it is widening. We had busloads of strikers
and students who came from the left-wing Paris suburbs to
join the march. They were joined by mayors of those towns
who wore their tricolor sashes."

The strike began, he said, with a walkout by railway
workers. Truckers and mass transit workers also walked out
soon followed by postal workers, Department of Taxation and
bank workers. "We have a huge participation by the gas and
electric utility workers because it is state-owned and Juppe
wants to open it up to private capital in accordance with
the Maasticht Agreement," Solbes said, referring to a so-
called European trade agreement similar to the North
American Free Trade Agreement.

Solbes said doctors, nurses, and other health care workers
will walk out Thursday. The French school teachers union
also called for a demonstration Thursday by teachers and
youth against Juppe's plans to reduce funding for public
education.

Despite negative and provocative anti-worker coverage in the
French media, polls show that sympathy for the strikers has
gone up from 55 percent to 65 percent, Solbes continued.
French President Jacques Chirac has kept a low profile while
anger mounts against Juppe. "Chirac is in a very difficult
position," said Solbes. "He was elected after a very
demagogic campaign in which he said workers have to have
jobs and higher wages. Now that he is in office, he must
prove that he will obey the Maastricht Agreement and the
European Bank by doing just the opposite."

Among the decisions that have stirred outrage is the plan to
increase the retirement age by three-and-a-half years; a
plan to terminate rail service on 6,000 kilometers of track
throughout France; a plan to eliminate 30,000 hospital beds;
to terminate 80,000 jobs; a scheme to limit to once every
three years a woman's right to a mammogram and to increase
health care co-payments drastically.

"What they propose is to take away what we have gained over
the past 50 years," Solbes said. "It is a trip back to the
19th Century. They say we can't afford to have a social
security system.They say they will not retreat. We are
heading into a harsher confrontation."

He pointed out that Juppe's regime has been so scandal-
plagued that he fired his own government recently and name a
new one. Juppe was forced to move out of a palatial Paris
apartment provided for him virtually free by Chirac. Chirac
was shown on French television speaking under a coconut tree
from sunny Africa while the struggle raged back home. He
informed the French people that the government will not
yield to the strikers demands and that they must tighten
their belts.

"Juppe spoke on TV tonight and said it is necessary for the
people to sacrifice and suffer," Solbes said. "The people
reject that. The position of the French Communist Party is
that Juppe and Chirac must listen to the people, abandon
this austerity plan, and return to the negotiating table."

The strikes, are spearheaded by the communist-led
Confederation General du Travail (General Confederation of
Labor) joined by a rival labor federation, Force Ouvriere
(FO). The strike has been called the biggest and most
militant in more than a decade. Marc Blondel, FO leader,
said, "This is a radicalization. I am asking all sectors to
join in the strike with one goal: the withdrawal of the
Juppe plan."

Louis Viannet, leader of the CGT, said that the day of
action and the planned expansion of the strike would
generate a "shock wave" against the government.

The government plans to privatize France Telecom, the
nation's telecommunications system. The government wants to
sell 49 percent of the company to Deutsche Telecom (the
German communications network) and Sprint (a U.S. telephone
company).

"[Minister for post and communications] Fillon's
declarations add fuel to the fire. They give us one more
reason to protest," said a statement from the SUD union, one
of the largest in France Telecom.

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) issued a
statement expressing "its complete solidarity with the
national protest action by the trade unions and the working
people of France." The WFTU said that "while the present
government in France is squandering resources on a nuclear
arms race (a reference to the nuclear tests France has
conducted recently in the Pacific), the same government is
proposing solutions to reduce budget deficits by cutting
social expenditures and attacking the job security and
social security of the working people."

The WFTU appealed to "trade unions in all countries to
express their solidarity with the trade union actions in
France to defend their hard won gains," right to social
security and call upon the French government to cancel its
measures to cut down social security and lower living
standards."
##30##


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