[PEN-L:2387] Le Monde Diplomatique article on French strikes

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

Le Monde diplomatique:

The French Spark

     by IGNACIO RAMONET

Previously published in El Pais, December 1995


    'Society does not exist' affirmed Margaret
    Thatcher, encouraged by the ultra-liberals of
    Europe, from both left and right. In the
    throes of the biggest social confrontation
    since 1968, the French revealed just how
    little truth such an affirmation contains. Six
    years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
    size and strength of this popular offensive
    fly in the face of those who trumpeted the
    'end of history'.


     What is the significance of this extraordinary revolt?
It is the first collective rebellion, on a national level,
against neo-liberalism. It is epoch-making. Beginning in mid-
November as an almost corporatist reaction of the public
service to the planned reform of the social security system,
the protests immediately received overwhelming support from
the general public - a striking new development.
     The French sensed that Mr Alain Juppe's 'reforms'
continued in the same neo-liberal rut into which the country
first fell in 1983 (when the socialists suddenly swung in
that direction), and of which they appear to have had more
than enough.
     After five indecisive months (during which the only
firm decision was the re-starting of the nuclear-test
programme), President Chirac recognised, on October 26 last,
that he had mis-diagnosed France's problems. In his opinion,
these were so bad that the State had to immediately adopt a
policy of budgetary rigour, with drastically reduced public
spending. This marked the end of the Chirac illusion. In an
atmosphere of general disgust and social despair, everything
was in place for a winter of protest. The message received
by the French was that Mr Chirac was preparing to continue
Mr Balladur's policies, without Mr Balladur. After having
criticised neo-liberalism, the President then admitted that
there was only one way forward - neo-liberalism. He too was
joining the new international movement, that of 'one-track
thought'.
     What is one-track thought? The translation into so-
called universal ideological terms of the interests of
international capital. It was first elaborated in 1944, at
the time of the Bretton-Woods agreements. Its principal
proponents are the major international economic and monetary
institutions - the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, GATT, the
WTO, the EU, the Bundesbank, etc. Their resources draw in
research centres, universities, foundations - which, in
turn, refine and spread the good word.
     This is disseminated by the major financial and
economic media, and particularly in the investment and trade
'bibles' - The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The
Economist, Reuters, etc. - often themselves the property of
large industrial and financial groups. Economists,
journalists, essayists, politicians, all adopt these new
commandments, and, through the mass media, repeat them
ceaselessly - in our media-sated societies, repetition takes
the place of demonstration. The first principle of one-track
thought is that economics wins out over politics. The
economy is placed at the controls. An economy rid, needless
to say, of social obstacles, which are a sclerosis 'causing
regression and crisis'.
     The other key concepts of one-track thought are well-
known: the market, whose 'invisible hand corrects the bumps
and dysfunctions of capitalism', and more particularly the
financial markets, whose 'signals orient and determine the
general movement of the economy'; competition, which
'stimulates and dynamises companies, leading to a ceaseless
and beneficial modernisation'; unfettered free trade, a
'factor in the uninterrupted development of commerce and
thus of societies'; globalisation, both of manufacturing
industry and of financial flows; the international division
of work, which 'tempers union demands and lowers labour
costs'; a strong currency - a 'stabilising factor';
deregulation; privatisation; liberalisation, etc. 'Less
State' is the recurring credo, with capital incomes winning
out over labour incomes, and indifference to ecological
costs.
     The constant repetition of these articles of faith by
almost all politicians, of right and left, confers on them
an intimidating power which suffocates every attempt at
debate, and renders resistance to these new mythologies
increasingly difficult.
     Even though largely favourable to the market economy,
the French are refusing the imposition of reform by ruin in
the name of abstract criteria whose effectiveness has not
been demonstrated. They are calling for interventionist
State policies to correct the excesses of ultra-liberalism:
mass unemployment, increasingly fragile jobs, poverty, the
dismantling of entire sections of the economy such as the
textile industry, shipbuilding, the iron and steel industry,
fishing, agriculture, etc. They object to the building of
the European Union on the ruins of the welfare state, seeing
no progress in such a development.
     They have noticed, too, that internationalism has
changed sides. Once the weapon of the workers, today it is
brandished in the name of globalisation by the financial
markets, multinational companies, the European
superstructure. In the face of this joint offensive, social
responses remain lamentably localised...
     If the French spark took flame in the current fields of
despair and spread to Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK, Belgium
and so on, the Brussels technocracy would, for the first
time, receive a common response. The first brick in the
edifice of a social Europe. What more incentive do the
citizens and unions of Europe need before joining the chorus
of protests?