edwardm's blog

It sounds like some sort of elaborate practical joke, revolutionary politics as re-imagined by the Bash Street Kids. Communist Students arrive at the Education Not for Sale conference "Reclaim the Campus", and position themselves around the room, pretending to be participating in the event in good...

The following is translated from the Le Monde newspaper's website. Following a long period of anger over pensions and the rising cost of living, in the wake of an inconclusive battle over the special regime pension reform in the Autumn, it looks like the French unions are gearing up for another...

The 2006 Movement Against Precarity – A First Assessment
[The following was written in 2006 by Xavier, a JCR militant. NB – "AG" here refers to Assemblée Générale, the sovereign mass meetings in universities, lycées (roughly equivalent to FE Colleges) and sometimes workplaces, where all students or...

For the Organisation of the Working Youth
[from the JCR 2008 Congress second discussion bulletin – two of the comrades who drafted this submission are in Débat Militant, which is politically significant here]

For some years, conflicts have been multiplying in the world of work. Salaries...

On Our Work in the Lycées – from the JCR's 2008 Congress Second Discussion Bulletin
[NB – a lycée is the rough equivalent of an FE college – students attend from the age of 15-16, and stay on for 3 years, occasionally more depending on the course]

A youth organisation must be present in all three...

A large teachers' strike has been called for Tuesday 18th March in France, with teachers in many schools voting to strike indefinitely. As the preparations for this are underway, the JCR (the LCR's youth wing) has been mobilising to get word out to lycée (roughly equivalent to post-16/FE college)...

First posted 20 November. Six days into their strike, French transport workers are refusing to back down. In spite of constant attacks in the press, and union leaders trying to weasel their way out of a fight, rail workers are keeping up the pressure and the leading the public sector fightback...

First posted 16 November. Student Movement overview (LCR website translation): 37 Universities wholly or partially on strike, with pickets: Paris I (Tolbiac), Sorbonne Paris IV, Paris III, Paris VIII Saint-Denis, Paris X Nanterre, Paris XIII Villetaneuse, Rouen, Tours...

... Caen, Nantes...

Just a quick update, as I've not yet been able to collar anyone for more than a couple of minutes. (Everyone in the LCR office, especially their rail and student organisers, has gone into meltdown and is unreachable).

The strike in transport is still on. The metros, suburban rails and buses...