"We Want to Control our Futures"

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"We Want to Control our Futures"

The new employment law imposed upon the youth of France, which has been met with weeks of protests, is to be scrapped, the French government announced on Monday. Unions and student leaders had given the government until this weekend to reverse their plans or face a further wave of general strikes and demonstrations. Claiming victory, young workers and students are remaining vigilant, and are reported to be holding meetings to decide how to keep the initiative in their own hands as the government formulates a new proposal this week.

            "We have to be extremely vigilant, and make sure that the government helps everyone – not just students – overcome the serious problem of unemployment here," said Victor Vidilles, a leader of France's main student union, Unef.

            "This is the first battle we have won, but not the whole war," said another organiser, Nabila Ramdani.

            Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin attempted to present the climb-down as an act of listening to the French people: in the face of all the experience of the young people of France over the past few weeks, as an act of a democratic regime. "I wanted to act fast on joblessness, because the dramatic situation and the despair of many young people made it vital," he said. "Initially, I wanted to put forward a strong solution. Not everyone understood that, and I regret it. The dialogue is now open and we should not close it again. This crisis reveals a deep anxiety in France, as much as a desire for modernisation."

            The Contrat de Première Embauche (CPE), literally the "First Employment Contract" was a proposed law, set to take effect this month, allowing employers to fire without notice or showing cause young workers under the age of 26 and in the first two "probationary" years of their employment.

            The protests have been massive in scale. Between 1 and 3 million people, according to reports, the majority of whom were young workers, demonstrated in over 100 towns and cities across France on March 28, which was the also day of a general strike called by French trade unions and student organisations. Large parts of the country's rail, bus and air networks were paralysed as transport workers joined the strike, while schools, post-offices, banks, government offices and unemployment bureaux experienced serious disruption.

            That strike was called after March 17, when over one million people demonstrated throughout France, which was considered by the unions to be an ultimatum to the government. The government refused to back down. Jean-Louis Debre, president of France's parliament, declared that "ordering the state through an ultimatum to not apply or withdraw a law that was voted by the parliament is an attack on the Republic and on democracy". Tens of thousands of youth and students also participated in demonstrations across France on March 23, as well as actions throughout the intervening period.

            The CPE was actually based on a preceding labour law, the Contrat Nouvelle Embauche (CNE), or the New Job Contract. This similar law applied to companies with less than 20 employees, allowing workers to be employed "on probation" for two years during which this employee could be fired without notice or reason. The CPE was essentially the same law applied to all working youth under the age of 26. Further, it also allowed these types of contracts to be consecutive for the same employer up to the age of 26, with a two to three month gap between two contracts. The arbitrary law was "justified" on the grounds that by making it easier to fire an employee, it would encourage employers to hire young and therefore create jobs for unemployed youth.

             These contracts seem to be part of the arsenal that is being gathered for a final attack on the Labour Code: the creation of a universal contract. This project would extend the possibility of firing people without reason to the entire workforce. The majority party, UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), has already set the outline for this project based on the Cahuc-Kramarz report which has been approved by the International Monetary Fund.

            The protests have been widely reported as "riots" in the media. However, taking March 28 as an example, it seems clear that the main incident of violence, at the Place de la Republique in Paris, was instigated by the police. It was reported that a few hundred young protesters threw missiles (empty beer cans according to some reports) as police moved into the crowds. The police, broadcast live across the world, responded by attacking the demonstration with water cannons and tear gas. Thousands of police in riot gear encircled the protesters in Paris. About 50 people were injured, including five police, in the Place. It is reported that police took up to 800 in mass arrests across the country, 500 in Paris alone.

            Comparisons have been inevitably drawn with the events of 1968, at a time when the tide of revolution was in flow, while Caroline Wyatt on the BBC News website comments, "Such odd revolutionaries. No heartfelt cry to change the world, but a plea for everything to stay the same." But what is happening? Young workers in their hundreds of thousands are defending their rights in the face of new measures by the government of their country, a government trying to turn the clock back to a previous era, part of the same anti-social developments in Europe that have lead to the mass strikes in Britain over pension rights, also on March 28.

            Various commentators are putting things as people having to resort to "revolutionary" methods not to change society but to preserve things as they are. To express things in such a way is to miss the point that as governments seek to tear up the old arrangements in pursuing their neo-liberal agenda, the response of the working class and people must be to oppose the drive to retrogression. Similarly, there are those who state that the young people are missing the reality, to demand a job for life is unrealistic in the modern world, and so on. Rather, the working youth of France are fighting for their rights. It is precisely the monopolies that are overhauling the present arrangements in order to preserve the status quo. In response, young people are seeking to take control of their future, and are demanding that enough is enough. It is the monopolies and their governments who are missing reality if they believe they can continue their offensive regardless of the state of the youth and workers' movement.

            "Young people are sacrificed in the name of the economy, and we are here to fight against it," Maxime Ourly, 18, a literature student at the Paris march, is reported as saying. "We don't know what will happen in the future, and we want to control our futures."

            WDIE congratulates the working youth of our neighbouring country in their success and fully supports their continuing efforts to turn that into lasting victory. We call upon the youth and students of Britain, in the context of their own struggles for empowerment, rights, peace and for their future, to take a stand and inform themselves of and discuss the events taking place in France.