France

By Joan Trevor After 20 days and still counting of urban unrest it is possible from London to draw only a partial balance sheet of what has happened in France and what might happen next. The riots that began in Clichy-sous-Bois as a response to the accidental deaths of two young men, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore, in an electricity sub-station spread to other deprived suburbs in areas around and in Paris — and to many towns beyond. Even the right-wing president Jacques Chirac was forced to admit that the rioting has social causes: the social alienation of wide layers of young people...

By Joan Trevor The workers of the SNCM ferry company have voted a return to work after 24 days’ strike. They had been protesting against government plans to privatise the company. They voted to stop their protest only after the government threatened to put the company into liquidation. The vote was 519 for a return to work and 73 against. It is disappointing, if not surprising, that the dispute ended in defeat. Especially since throughout Marseille there were a number of disputes ongoing, against, effectively, the same government policies. The union federations, however, are not uniting the...

In an autumn of demonstrations in France, Saturday 15 October saw a small demonstration of a few thousands in Paris demanding, “Homes for all, end the expulsions”. The demonstration was a response to the fires in slum dwellings that have killed more than 50 people, and to the lack of affordable housing for many of Paris’s poorest inhabitants. The fires included a blaze in April in a one-star hotel used as temporary accommodation by the Paris municipal authorities, in which 26 people died; a fire in a hostel on 24 August that killed 17 people; and a fire on 30 August that killed seven people...

By Joan Trevor On 4 October all the main national trade union federations in France called a joint day of strikes and demonstrations. The first reports suggest that this has been well supported by workers — including many non-union members. The unions are demanding an increase in pay — the spending-power of French workers has been falling behind price increases; defence of public services; and against unemployment, which currently stands at almost 10%. The unions estimated that more than a million workers went on demonstrations; 350,000 in Paris. The actions have been well supported by the...

Alan Porter reviews The Last Mitterrand Francois Mitterand simultaneously thought of himself as the saviour of the French left and the “last great president in the line of De Gaulle”. While Robert Guédiguian’s film is very good on this enormous egotism, as well as the 1981-95 president’s role in the Vichy regime’s mass deportation of Jews, its criticism of Mitterand’s failure to deliver the “break with capitalism” promised at the 1971 Socialist Party Congress is somewhat less sharp. The plot revolves around the young Antoine Moreau (based on a real writer, Georges-Marc Benamou) compiling a...

Réponse à Martin Thomas (et ça et là à Yves Coleman) : voir la réalité en face ! Il faut savoir gagner une grève ! Un argument revient souvent sous la plume de Martin : quand la bourgeoisie nous demande de choisir entre ceci et cela, de dire soit Oui soit Non, il vaut mieux ne dire ni l'un ni l'autre. Il arrive en effet que les choses se présentent ainsi mais, dans sa généralité, cet argument est étrange. Si dans une entreprise le patron propose un plan de licenciements, les travailleurs ne vont pas se lancer dans des cogitations sur le thème "On veut nous contraindre à choisir entre soit la...