Since we reported on the fight against the El Khomri labour law in France (see FRFI 251), resistance has not let up. On 29 August, an Île-de-France (Paris region) inter-union meeting, attended by unions including CGT, FO, FSU, SOLIDAIRES, UNEF, UNL and FIDL, decided to hold a demonstration at 2pm on 15 September at Place de la Bastille, marching to Place de la République, to fight for the repeal of the reactionary anti-labour El Khomri law, which was enacted on 8 August. People took to the streets en masse once again.
The CGT (France’s largest union) estimate that 40,000 had turned out on the streets in Paris by mid-afternoon. The police estimate was between 12,500 and 13,500. The unions estimate that 170,000 protested across the country as a whole, while the Interior Ministry puts the figure between 77,500 and 78,500. The ministry has also announced that over 30 people have been arrested in connection with ‘violence’.
One protester, 46-year-old Laurent Theron, who was standing peacefully with his hands in his pockets, lost an eye due to being struck with a gas canister launched by the CRS riot police. The police prefecture have had to admit that Theron was struck in the eye, but is attempting to claim that he was hit by an ‘undetermined projectile’ in order to try to shift the blame onto protesters and away from their own actions. They have launched an ‘inquiry’, which is likely to be no more than a sham. Protesters retaliated throwing Molotov cocktails, injuring up to 15 police officers.
At the same time as the CRS was attacking those resisting the draconian new law, the police broke up, for the third time, the makeshift camp inhabited by asylum seekers and refugees at Stalingrad in north-east Paris.
French capitalism is stagnant, in danger of going into serious decline. Growth in the first quarter of 2016 was a mere 0.5% and France’s current account balance (an important indicator of an economy’s health) was -€20bn. The ruling class response is twofold: escalating imperialist plunder in the oppressed nations (in Mali, Syria, Côte d’Ivoire, etc) and an all-out attack on the working class at home. All capitalist crises are in the last instance crises of profitability. Developments in France are the French ruling class’s attempts to restore that profitability. This heightens the class struggle, as it is only the working class that produces the wealth on which profits depend.
As we argued in FRFI 251, capitalist crisis in France is forcing the ruling class to attack even the labour aristocracy, who they need to hold back the revolutionary activity of the mass of the working class. The door is open for the unions to line up with black and Muslim workers who already work the kinds of hours and under conditions that the El Khomri Law threatens to impose. As the French state uses the State of Emergency to conduct ‘administrative searches’ (violent warrantless searches) against Muslims, and continues to harass migrants, black people and Muslims, the objective basis for unity between different sections of the working class in France is becoming ever clearer.
In this period of crisis the repeal of the reactionary El Khomri Law, as well as the long-term victory of the working class struggle, is dependent upon the revolutionary action of the united mass of the working class.
Repeal the El Khomri Law! Victory to the French workers!
Séamus Padraíc
