Workers' Liberty

In January, the French government unveiled a plan for a new employment law, supposedly aimed at tackling unemployment amongst young people.

In reality, the law will allow firms to offer contracts to young workers that will make it much easier for them to be sacked. Coming as part of the increasing “precarité” (precariousness) of many young French workers, the proposals incensed the French labour and student movements.

On 7th March, nearly 1,000,000 workers and students across France demonstrated and struck. Estimates had it that around 15% of the country’s education workers took part in the strike, and several airports in France were unable to function due to the industrial action.

Students were also involved in the mobilisations. Unemployment amongst young people is around 20% - more than double the national average.

The following day, students at the world-famous Sorbonne University - the site of some of the key events of the revolutionary upheaval of 1968 - occupied buildings on campus in protest at the law. As well as the Sorbonne, 40 out of France’s 84 universities found themselves under occupation by Friday 10th March. In characteristic fashion, the French riot police used batons and tear-gas on student protestors when they clashed.

A national co-ordinating committee has been set up to facilitate links between various occupied universities and striking students, and in some towns - such as Lille - students have set up labour movement liaison committees to co-ordinate joint action between students and workers. There have already been proposals to establish such committees at a national level. A meeting of the co-ordinating committee last Saturday called for a general strike on Thursday 23rd March.

There has been much talk in the mainstream press about “the spirit of ‘68”, but the comparisons are not unjustified. While the situation is clearly not as explicitly revolutionary as May 1968, some French leftists have begun to suggest that the situation is potentially as significant as the 1984 Miners’ Strike in Britain.

For the official British student movement, which is currently so supine and tame that it cancelled its own national demonstration this year, the French strikes should be a wake-up call. The next national mobilisation in France is on Saturday 18th, and Education Not for Sale (www.free-education.org.uk) supporters will be attending.

The example of student activists engaging in militant mobilisation in solidarity with wider labour movement struggles is inspiring for socialists, trade unionists and student movement radicals everywhere.

We will continue to report on events as they unfold.