Chirac bows to the struggle against the CPE

international | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis Tuesday April 11, 2006 14:45 by DF - ISN

The victory of the movement against the CPE in France raises exciting possibilities for the European left

Jacques Chirac finally bowed to weeks of popular pressure on April 10th and withdrew the much-loathed CPE law. The legislation, which would have made it easier for French companies to fire young workers, is now on the scrap-heap.

The French student and labour movements didn’t stop the Thatcherite CPE through a campaign of polite lobbying or parliamentary horse-trading. They relied on mass mobilisation. An escalating campaign of protest reached its peak on March 28th, when 3 million people took to the streets – the biggest demonstration in recent history, bigger even than May 1968.

Spurning all attempts to buy them off with token concessions, they made it clear that nothing less than surrender would be enough. With public opinion firmly behind them, the protesters brought France’s right-wing government to its knees.

The contrast with Ireland’s labour movement could hardly be more striking. Having brought more than 100,000 people onto the streets in support of the Irish Ferries workers, SIPTU then rushed to accept a lousy deal so they could return to “normal business”. They never dreamed of escalating the campaign until full victory had been secured.

The French victory shows what can be achieved when social movements fight to win. It has huge implications for the future.

Last year’s vote on the EU constitution revealed a yawning gap between the French political elite and the people they claim to represent. If it had been left to France’s politicians to decide, the treaty would have been passed with 90% approval. But when the people were consulted, it was defeated by a comfortable margin. Polls showed that most “no” voters had seen the referendum as a chance to protest against neo-liberalism.

A few months later, the disaffected youth of the French suburbs erupted in rage against police brutality and official racism. The November rioting exposed the dire poverty and racial discrimination that lies beneath the so-called “French social model”. Now the latest attempt by France’s rulers to push their society further along the Thatcherite road has been stopped in its tracks.

As the climb-down was announced by Chirac, a BBC journalist scoffed that it was another example of weak-kneed French leaders bowing to “politics by placard”. Such patronising and dismissive comments betray a real fear that the French example may prove contagious.

As long as the ballot box remains the only outlet for popular discontent, our rulers can rest easy. With traditional left-wing parties co-opted and de-radicalised, voters are forced to choose from a very limited menu. Parliamentary politics can play the role of a shock absorber, soaking up people’s anger and making sure it has no real impact on policy.

But when people realise that they can by-pass their official representatives and take action themselves, the whole dynamic changes. What was once “inevitable” no longer seems so intimidating, what was “utopian” suddenly appears realistic.

The defeat of the CPE is only a first step. France is still a deeply unequal society dominated by the interests of capital. But everyone who took part in the protest movement will have gained the confidence that it’s possible to change society through collective action. A limited defensive victory points the way towards a much broader struggle for a different social order.

Right-wing commentators are now comparing France with Britain in the 1970s, remarking that things will have to get much worse before “reform” can succeed. It’s an apt comparison in many ways. Britain then faced economic stagnation and social unrest. Maggie Thatcher was able to seize the opportunity by convincing enough people that Britain’s economic decline was caused by high wages, generous social programmes and reckless trade unionists. She forced through radical free-market policies, redistributed wealth from the poor to the rich and clobbered the workers’ movement.

Thatcher’s victories have echoed well beyond the UK in the intervening years. Now the French political elite is trying to convince its own people to swallow the same medicine. But they will find it far more difficult. The British trade union movement had a long tradition of law-abiding respectability. One union leader summed it up perfectly when he insisted: “It would be better for the whole movement to be destroyed than for us to act unconstitutionally.” The fight-back against Thatcher was crippled by this mentality.

The French movement has a very different history. Judging by the mobilisation against the CPE, this tradition is alive and well. But if this is to be the start of something greater, the different sections of the French left will have to seize the opportunities that are beginning to open up.

It’s worth recalling that the British Labour party helped pave the way for Thatcher: its leading spokesmen did their best to blame the working class and the welfare state for the country’s economic difficulties. As things stand, the French Socialists are little better.

The party is dominated by Blairite dinosaurs who are completely out of touch with its traditional electorate (the majority of whom voted against the EU constitution in defiance of the party line). They secretly agree with the right-wing champion Nicolas Sarkozy that France needs a good dose of neo-liberalism, although they are cautious about expressing these thoughts in public.

Over the last year, the real energy and drive has come from the “left of the left” (as it is known in France). The forces to the left of social democracy played a key role in the defeat of the EU treaty, and the struggle against the CPE owed far more to the influence of radical activists than it did to the sound-bites of moderate politicians.

The radical left now has a chance to build on these victories and put forward an alternative vision for the future. It will need to argue for practical measures to combat poverty and unemployment that can both capture the popular imagination and point the way towards a socialist alternative to capitalism. It will need to remain relevant to everyday struggles without losing sight of the bigger picture.

This is easier said than done, but the last year has raised the possibility of a real break-through in France. And this shift has implications for the whole European left. The coming years promise to be eventful.