France

France: Working class battles ruling Socialist Party

Details: Created: Wednesday, 08 June 2016 09:43; Written by Séamus Padraíc

France working class battles ruling socialist party

On 17 March 2016 a new labour bill was introduced into the French National Assembly. The El Khomri Law (nicknamed after the Labour Minister who introduced it) proposes extending the maximum working day from 10 to 12 hours, and working week from 48 to 60 hours. Currently, overtime pay begins at 35 hours per week, and is 25% for the first eight hours (up to 43) and 50% for anything more. The proposed law allows ‘collective bargaining’ agreements to reduce overtime pay to just 10% and makes it easier for employers to fire workers, and severely limit compensation available from tribunals, where there is currently no limit.

Deputies on the ‘left’ of the ruling Socialist Party offered mild resistance. On 14 April, President Hollande vowed to push ahead with the bill. On 10 May, Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced that the government would force the bill through the Assembly without a vote, using Article 49.3 of the constitution. On 11 May, Socialist Party deputies who opposed the law were faced with the choice of opposing the law or opposing their government in a vote of confidence. They sided with the government, allowing Valls to push the bill into the Senate, where it awaits approval.

Paris killings unleash hypocrisy and repression

Details: Created: Thursday, 12 February 2015 12:12; Written by Nicki Jameson

World leaders flocked to Paris to support 'freedom of expression'

Between 7 and 9 January three gunmen carried out a succession of high profile terrorist attacks in Paris, killing 17 people. These attacks, in the heart of one of the capital cities of western imperialism, led to an immediate reaction across Europe and beyond. Social media latched on to the solidarity message ‘Je suis Charlie’ and world leaders, including Cameron, Merkel. Rajoy, Netanyahu, and Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, flocked to Paris to be photographed marching in support of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘western values’. Nicki Jameson reports.

France and the recolonisation of Mali

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 February 2013 16:59; Written by FRFI

euFight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 231 February-March 2013

On 11 January 2013 France attacked Mali in West Africa with helicopter gunships. Four days later the French government said it would increase its ground troops in Mali from 750 to 1,400 and then to 2,500. 50 tanks and armed trucks crossed into Mali from Côte d’Ivoire. The French government says the ‘operation will last as long as is necessary’. The recolonisation of Mali has begun. CHARLES CHINWEIZU reports.

Côte d’Ivoire: French foothold in oil-rich frontier

Details: Created: Tuesday, 19 April 2011 09:23; Written by FRFI

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On 11 April 2011, former President of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Laurent Gbagbo was apprehended by French special forces at an underground bunker in the presidential residence in Abidjan. Gbagbo, his wife Simone, son Michel and 50 close associates were handed over to the ‘rebel’ forces of presidential rival Alassane Ouattara and paraded on TV. French intelligence knew the exact location of bunker. Ouattara will be installed as president by France.

France has signalled to its fellow imperialist rivals that it intends to keep hold of its neo-colony in West Africa, a major source of oil. With Britain and the US established in Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, and with China increasing its investments in Africa as a whole, France cannot afford to give way to its rivals and is prepared to carry out atrocities to keep its foothold in this resource-rich region. Gbagbo and Ouattara are the playthings of the imperialists.

France: Fight state racism

Details: Created: Thursday, 07 October 2010 11:02; Written by Anjela Broustal

FRFI 217 October/November 2010

100,000 people marched in cities across France on 4 September and other demonstrations were held in European capitals in protest against the destruction of Roma camps in France and subsequent deportation of nearly 1,000 Roma men, women and children.

So appalling and overtly racist were the actions taken by the French government in August that they were even condemned by the European Union (EU). France now faces the unprecedented threat of prosecution by the EU, with Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding saying she had been appalled ‘by a situation which gave the impression that people are being removed from a member state of the European Union just because they belong to a certain ethnic minority. This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War.’

French government attacks Muslim population

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 May 2009 21:14; Written by Nicki Jameson

The French Senate has voted by an overwhelming margin, 276 votes to 20, to approve legislation banning the Islamic headscarf or hijab and other ‘conspicuous religious symbols’ from being worn in French schools. The vote repeated a similar landslide in the lower house of the French Parliament, 494 votes to 36. Almost the whole French establishment has denounced the wearing of Islamic headscarves by young girls to school, with parliamentarians vying with one another for who can espouse ‘secularism’ the loudest. Ironically, only Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, has opposed the law, on the grounds that it is a cosmetic exercise and does not sufficiently confront the problem of immigration.

Both French women’s groups and French Muslims, including women, are divided on their approach to the ban. On International Women’s Day, Muslim women marched both for and against the law.

Côte d’Ivoire: French imperialism runs amok

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 May 2009 20:56; Written by Charles Chinweizu

On 4 November 2004 the Ivorian air force began bombing rebel-held positions in the centre and north of the country. On 6 November it killed nine French ‘peacekeepers’ and a US ‘aid-worker’ at a military base in Bouaké. France, with over 4,000 troops already in the country under a UN mandate, then destroyed the tiny Ivorian air force of two jets and five helicopters as they lay on the tarmac. ‘You do not kill French soldiers with impunity’, explained French prime minister Raffarin.

French military seized the airport and deployed 50 armoured vehicles in the vicinity of the President Laurent Gbagbo’s Abidjan residence. French soldiers fired into the air, surrounded the presidential mansion and placed barbed wire between them and thousands of Ivorian people who heeded radio appeals to protect their head of state. Strategic bridges were seized and armoured vehicles protected roadblocks from military bases to the airport. At the Hotel Ivoire, commandeered as a military base, French officials held talks with Ivorian army chief of staff, General Doue, while outside French helicopters continued to bomb Abidjan.

France: the fire this time

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 May 2009 20:25; Written by Cat Alison

On the night of 27 October, over 400 youth, mainly of north African origin, clashed with police on the streets of Clichy-sous-Bois, a north-eastern suburb of Paris; police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Within days riots had erupted all over France, from Rouen in the north to Avignon in the south. Over the next 18 days and nights nearly 9,000 cars were torched and schools, buses and shops set alight as young people fought running battles against the hated police. On 5 November there were 1,400 arson attacks in a single night. On the night of 9 November, vandalism at two power stations caused widespread blackouts in Lyon, France’s second largest city. The unrest even spilled over the border into Belgium.

Police responded with brute force and mass arrests and on 9 November, President Chirac imposed a state of emergency throughout France, giving cities sweeping powers to impose curfews, limit the movement of people and vehicles, close public spaces where ‘gangs gather’ and place those identified as trouble-makers under house arrest. These special powers, which date back to the Algerian war of independence and have never before been used in France itself, are now in force across 40 cities and suburbs of France. At the same time the scale of the revolt has forced France to confront the issue of the appalling poverty, ghettoisation and discrimination faced by its immigrant community. In this there are parallels with the uprising by mainly black working class youth that erupted in Britain in 1981.

France: no to casualisation!

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 May 2009 14:48; Written by Annabelle Richardson

Hundreds of thousands of young people have been demonstrating and occupying universities and sixth-forms throughout France in protest at a new law passed on 9 March which significantly reduces employment rights for those under the age of 26.

The government forced the Law for Equality of Opportunities through parliament using a special article in the French constitution to bypass the National Assembly and thus suppress any debate. The new law creates a ‘First Employment Contract’ (CPE) which will allow an employer to fire an employee under the age of 26 during the first two years of employment without having to give any reason. The law has been billed as a solution to high youth unemployment, which at over 20% (and 50% in the poor suburbs) is twice the national average. The government says that rigid labour laws are a disincentive for employers to hire young people as they cannot afford the risk in the new economic climate. Increased flexibility will increase employment. In other words, workers’ rights are harming profits. This new First Employment Contract is part of a broader ruling class strategy of stripping workers’ rights. It follows an almost identical contract established in August 2005 that can be used by small businesses. In 1994 the Balladur government tried to impose the CIP or ‘Beginning Work Contract’ which lowered the minimum wage for those aged 25 and under in order to make them more employable. On that occasion mass action forced the government to repeal the law.

Resistance to this casualisation of labour has mushroomed, taking the form of demonstrations, strikes and occupations as well as direct action against the state. As FRFI went to press, 21 universities were being occupied and 46 more disrupted. The movement has also spread to the secondary schools, with 814 lycées participating in some sort of strike action. In some schools and universities teachers have joined the students in occupying the buildings.

Resistance to racist repression in France

Details: Created: Tuesday, 14 April 2009 15:36; Written by Charles Chinweizu

An inspirational new anti-racist movement is developing in France, taking on both the state and the opportunist trade unions and aid organisations. France has introduced four new anti-immigrant laws since 2004, leading to increased repression of migrant workers. In response, hunger strikes, demonstrations, workplace occupations and strikes accelerated with thousands marching to demand the legalisation of some 400,000 sans-papiers (undocumented migrants). CHARLES CHINWEIZU reports.

Since 2 May 2008 the Bourse du Travail, building of the Confederation General du Travail (CGT) trade union federation, in Paris, has been occupied by around 800 men, women and children from the Coordination des sans-papiers 75 (CSP75), in direct challenge to the CGT’s attempts to stifle and control the movement. The CGT is closely allied with the social democratic French Communist Party. CSP75 is an umbrella group for all the self-organised sans-papiers collectives in the Paris region (the postcode for Paris is 75).

Massive protests in France

Details: Created: Tuesday, 14 April 2009 10:35; Written by Trevor Rayne

FRFI 207 February / March 2009

The crisis of international capitalism is provoking mass protests across Europe from Iceland to Greece and Latvia to France. On 29 January at least 2.5 million people protested at 200 marches and rallies in towns and cities across France against the French government, its attacks on the public sector and working conditions and against rising unemployment. The protests were called by eight trade union groups and accompanied by a 24-hour nationwide strike; rail and bus services, airports, schools and postal services were closed down. The Paris demonstration was even joined by stock exchange workers. University and high school occupations are continuing.