For over a month now, France has been in ferment with the students and workers staging massive demonstrations, sit-ins and strikes, demanding the withdrawal of a new labour law which gives greater flexibility to the employers to fire young people. The latest nationwide strike (this article was written on 6th April) on the 4th of April saw nearly 700,000 people turning out in Paris. The eight kilometer stretch between Place de l’Italie and Place de la Republique was thick with people. In 192 demonstrations across the country over two million people jammed the streets, saying ‘no’ to the CPE or the new job contract and the half-hearted compromise offered by the President, Jacques Chirac. Meetings between the ruling UMP Party and the unions were supposed to begin on the 5th April.

This contract was introduced on the 8th of March and made into a law on 2nd April. Even before 18 March, nearly 1.5 million people had participated in 160 demonstrations throughout the country. Of the 84 state run universities, 64 had remained closed for two successive weeks till that time. In a symbolic development, the riot police had used force to evacuate the historic Sorbonne University in Paris, the center of the May 1968 uprising.

Soon after the protests began, the university students were joined by the school students. As on 20th of March, nearly 313 high schools were shut and the number tripled to 814 in a single day. By 22nd of March, the ministry stopped releasing the figures! According to FIDL, union of secondary school students, some 25% of the country’s 4370 lycees (secondary schools) were hit by total or partial closures. The major trade unions have also joined hands with the students in protests against the contract. ‘Left’ opposition parties and two thirds of the public are also opposing the law. The nationwide strikes on 28th and 30th March also attracted about 700,000 people on each day.

The televised address by President Chirac on 31 March attracted cat-calls from the protestors who had gathered in Paris’ Place de Bastille which is incidentally also the place where the 1789 French Revolution had begun. The protests also became violent at places with the protestors smashing store windows, damaging cars, attacking the office of a Member of Parliament and throwing bottles at the police. Unfortunately the immigrant population was not extensively involved in this agitation. It should be remembered that last October and November, it was the same people and youth staying in the suburbs of France who had taken to the streets against the social and economic discrimination unleashed against the immigrant population of the country; then the oppressed amongst the whites did not come out in active support.

The student demonstrations in Paris and other cities on March 23 resulted in 630 arrests and till date, more than 2500 people have been arrested in connection with the anti-CPE movement. Violent incidents occurring at the protests have been made a further pretext for police repression and the youth were shot at with the police paint guns to mark them as targets. A 39 year telecommunications worker went into coma after the riot police hit him on the head with their truncheons before stomping on him.

Contrat Premiere Embauche ( CPE) or the ‘First Job Contract’ is a new employment contract for those under 26 years of age, which increases the trial (or apprentice type) period to two years and also says that during this period, the employer can terminate the contract without any explanation. For termination after the first month, a notice of two weeks needs to be given and after six months, a notice of one month is required. Brought in by the Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on 8th of March, it was ratified by the country’s Constitutional Council on the 30th of March. This is the state body that decides on the constitutionality of the new laws. Finally it was made into a law on the 2nd of April.

Due to the pressure of widespread protests, President Chirac did announce some modifications to the contract on 31 March but that does not change its essence. The President announced that he would promulgate the new labour legislation but would also introduce another bill in the parliament watering down certain clauses viz: the trial period of two years would be reduced to one year and the employer would need to give an explanation for breaking the contract. However, the opponents are of the opinion that these modifications make no difference to the basic law which would make the unemployment situation even more grave. The protestors point out that the law was pushed through the parliament without any debate and has dubbed the law as the ‘Kleenex Contract’ as with this in place, the young workers can be dismissed and discarded like a facial tissue.

It is noteworthy that more than 20% of the youth in France remain unemployed which is the highest in Europe. This rate is as high as 50% amongst the immigrant youth which was one of the reasons for the turmoil last October. The youth unemployment rate is double that of the national average of 9.6% unemployment.

Although the protests were polarized around the CPE, the real discontent runs far deeper. France is plagued by extremely high unemployment rates and over the years the French households have seen their real incomes dwindle. The economy is sluggish, the national debt is on the rise and job creation stagnant. The gap between the rich and the poor has risen significantly, a fact underscored by the ferment, last October. The jobs are being cut on the one hand but the profits by the companies continue to show high records.

As far as the French and the European bourgeoisie is concerned, the only way to succeed against their economic rivals in US and Japan and the rising trade threat from China is by intensifying the exploitation of the working class. All over Europe, the governments are imposing same type of ‘labour-induced market reforms’. The aim of the CPE is no different from the Hartz IV laws introduced in Germany aginst which there was a massive worker’s movment and is in line with the social reforms insisted upon by the European Union Commission, the European Central Bank and big business internationally. In the meeting of the EU leaders held in Barcelona on 15th March this year, labour reforms was high on the agenda.

This universal assault on workers’ living conditions and democratic rights is inseparably linked to the imperialist policies of the US and Europe. Therefore it is not surprising that the entire European ruling elite has lined up behind Chirac and Villepin over the CPE struggle. The French ruling elite, like its equivalents internationally, has been driven by the processes of the capitalist globalisation to impose ruthless free market reforms, including privatization, cuts to social services and welfare spending and also attacks on workers’ wages and conditions. There is a consensus within the French ruling establishment that the gains secured by the working people in the decades after the second world war, must be reversed and the workers must be subjected to the discipline of the ‘free market’. To maintain French capitalism’s international competitiveness against the rivals in the US, Europe and Asia, wages and conditions must be systematically driven down. And this is exactly what the CPE aims to do.

The 1789 French Revolution is etched in history. The 1968 uprising against Charles de Gaulle shall also be remembered for years to come. Even if one were to look at the more recent past, the French students and workers have stood up in protest against the policies of the government, time and again.

The present struggle marks the continuation of a series of struggles seen in France in the past decade against the state’s efforts to dismantle the social gains conceded to the working class in the post war period. In 1994, the students countered the controversial plan of the then Prime Minister, Edouard Balladur, which allowed the employers to pay the young workers, less than the minimum wages. In 1995 again, a mass strike erupted against Prime Minister, Alain Juppe’s attacks on social programmes, public sector workers’ pensions, health benefits and conditions. At the peak of that struggle, an estimated 2.3 million workers had participated. Large sections of the working class resisted the free market reforms of Juppe’s successor, the Socialist Party’s Lionel Jospin who launched a series of privatizations and attacks on social spending. In 2003, French workers protested against the attacks on pensions and the public education system again, this time in millions against the right-wing government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin. And the unrest amongst the immigrants last year also reflects the discontentment against the discriminatory and exploitative policies of the government. Besides these, there have been extensive and militant agitation by the truckers and farmers.

As has been said earlier, the present struggle is the continuation of the struggles of the French people against the reversal of gains made by the working class in the post war period. Whether it is the right, center-right or the social democrats, all the governments in France have essentially toed the interests of big capital and in the process launched a series of attacks on the working class. Although a revolutionary potential exists in the present struggle, unfortunately the leading student and worker organizations participating in it have limited it to an anti CPE struggle and linked it to a struggle against the capitalist system itself. According to the Communist Party of France(Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), the leaders of this struggle, "refused to regard the state as the tool of the dominant class …decided to regard it as a neutral inter-mediary between the government and itself".

The capitulation of the trade unions is visible in the fact that 5 major unions-CGT (General Confederation of Labour), CFDT ( French Democratic Confederation of Labour), FO ( Workers Power) and two management unions, CFTC & CFE-CGC met the Prime Minister, Villepin and have since tried to present this meeting as the vehicle through which further pressure can be placed on the government to withdraw the CPE.

The political perspective of the student unions is no different. Bruno Julliard, the charismatic leader of the largest university student union which has close ties with the Socialist Party, summed up his position as, " The call for resignation of government is not a demand that I share… I do not want to inflict a defeat on Dominique de Villepin…we are asking for a discussion- neither side should lose face."

It has to be recognized that apart from the ruling UMP, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party have for nearly a quarter of century, played a critical role in helping impose austerity measures demanded by big business, first under Mitterand and then under Jospin. They initiated many of the cheap labour schemes that opened the way to the CPE. These parties are wedded to a reformist perspective that leads inescapably to capitulation before the ruling elite. Hence, it is not surprising that the prominent ‘left’ parliamentarian of the Socialist Party, Arnaud Montebourg, declared in regard to the present struggle, "We are worried about where all of this is heading." Due to their regular betrayals they were badly routed in the last elections, which saw major gains on the fascist party.

Yet, there is a section of protestors which believes that " it is necessary to go beyond the CPE" and that there is a need to " have to make a break with the capitalist system."

What has to be understood is that the Villepin government must be brought down but replacing it with the official ‘left’, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party will not resolve anything.

The source of the UMP government’s attacks on the working class and the youth is the historic failure of the capitalist system itself. Capitalism is in crisis, not just in France or Europe or US but on a global scale. In the epoch of global capitalism, none of the issues raised by the CPE can be resolved simply within the existing capitalist system. Today the working class in France and elsewhere is confronted with transnational corporations that relentlessly downsize and shift jobs to the countries where labour is cheaper. The anti-CPE movement must be guided in its economic demands and political direction by revolutionary politics. The movement should not limit itself to the withdrawal of CPE but should become a movement which unites workers of all nationalities, races and religions throughout Europe against the capitalist and imperialist policies of their governments. Meanwhile, there is a most urgent need for the immigrant black population and the oppressed amongst the whites to unite and jointly launch their battles and not separately as has been happening.