Millions strike across France and England

international | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Tuesday March 28, 2006 18:17 by Dave Lordan - SWP

Red Tuesday in France and Britain

In what is the reddest Tuesday for some years millions of workers are striking across England and France.
In France the government under right wing Prime Minister Dominic Villepin is attempting to introduce a law which will make workers under 26 as disposable as toilet paper- under the terms of the law bosses would be able to hire and fire young workers at will without notice or justification. The resulting protest movement has electrified France. Today's is the sixth protest in a fortnight and there are no signs of the movement losing momentum. It is the first time that trade unions have struck en masse in support of the students who originated the protests weeks ago. According to reports in the mainstream media France has ground to a standstill in the face of the strike and the massive rallies taking place in over 200 cities across France- there are 250000 marching in Marseille.
All the polls show that a large majority of the French population support the strikes and there are widespread calls now for Villepin’s resignation and the rescinding of the legislation. Should the French movement be victorious it would be a major defeat for neo-liberalism across Europe and will hopefully inspire workers over here to take action.

In Britain the largest strike since 1926 is taking place among local government workers. Close to 1.5million are believed to be taking part, the majority of them women.
The strike is over Blair’s attempt to raise the age of retirement age of certain categories of low paid public servants from 60 to 65.
The unions involved are promising further action on the issue in the run up to May’s council elections.

Obviously there are connections between these two national strike movements. They are both a reaction against attempts by local ruling classes to make workers pay for the problems of capitalism. Also the strength and solidarity of the movements, across unions, and between workers and students, are very hopeful and inspiring signs that the working class, consigned to a footnote in history after the defeats of the nineteen eighties and nineties, is back in action in a big way.

There is plenty in the mainstream press about the strikes. In the alternative media there is excellent coverage at both www.libcom.org and www.socialistworker.org.uk