by George
Mitralias
After four
years of apathy, lethargy and inactivity of French society, which
coincide with the four years (2012-2016) of the presidency of
Francois Hollande, everything suggests now that the ongoing rapid
awakening will lead to one of those volcanic eruptions - for many
decades now - by the youth and labor movement of France! And we dare
to predict that this could happen in the next few weeks, in mid April
or May 2016.
So,
"everything started" when the Hollande-Valls duo and the
socialist-liberal government, made the most fatal mistake of an
arrogant power: being sure that the French society was addicted to
drink the bitter cup of their extreme neoliberal counter-reforms
without reacting, they added a drop that made the glass to overflow.
And because this fatal drop is fundamentally changing the "Labour
Code" aimed at gnawing or even the complete elimination of the
most basic labor rights been conquered in the last 100 years, we see
the past two weeks an overflowing rage of the French youth and French
workers on the streets of hundreds of French cities!
It started
on March 9, when half a million students and workers marched
throughout France demanding the withdrawal of the government bill.
The second mobilization was a week later, on March 17, and this time
took to the streets 150,000 pupils and students who are anxious about
their future, as the bill promises a completely bad life into a
nightmare job jungle. According to the organizers, both these two
days of mobilization, as the one on March 24, is only a "warm-up"
process of the movement in order to reach large popular mobilization,
which is set for March 31, ready to impose a shift of the balance of
power which will force the government and the employers to withdraw
the bill permanently.
The first
thing that impresses and makes these protests stand out, is the
general sense that until now we had rather simple pre-earthquake
vibrations that presage the upcoming major social earthquake. Almost
everyone from the student unions to anonymous students and especially
students who demonstrate and occupy hundreds of their high schools,
all admit publicly that the rage and determination is proportional to
social ruins that have accumulated the neoliberal policies by all,
without exception, the French Governments, the Right and "Left",
in the last 15-20 years.
The fact
that we are dealing with "something big and deep"
indirectly confirmed by both by the - unexpected and therefore
impressive - revival of May '68 in the images of banners and slogans
of the youth demonstrations, and by the fact that the protests had
been imposed on the trade union leaders by the base of their
organizations - from the "bottom". Specifically, even the
leaders of the most active trade unions (CGT, FO, Sud) initially
requested only some "changes" to the controversial bill,
not its withdrawal. For that, they called for a demonstration only
on 31 March, when things would had been determined, just to maintain
the tradition of the struggles.
Eventually,
it was the 'anonymous' autonomous initiatives, such as that of a
feminist who wrote and circulated a text/complaint against the bill,
for which, within days, more than one million signatures (!) have
been collected. This action pushed the youth unions (UNEF for
students, and FIDL for pupils) and later the labor unions to be
mobilized but also to radicalize their demands.
Indicative
of this radicalization, is the fact that the leaderships of most of
these unions, youth and workers, are traditionally loyal to the
ruling Socialist party and several of their executives are members of
this party. Their current harsh confrontation with the government and
the party leadership, is merely indicative of the great crisis of the
French Social Democracy, which also reflected in the - historically
unique - collapse of the popularity of the Hollande-Valls duo, which
is now consistently below 20%!
Yet, the
comic but also tragic is that in these days, the leadership of the
French Communist Party has chosen to give the final blow to the Left
Front (Front de Gauche), and promised the engagement with the
Socialist party! How? By stating not only that it will participate
with the General Secretary Pierre Laurent in the primaries of the
Socialist party, for the emergence of the 'common candidate of the
Left' in the presidential elections of 2017, but also, that it will
support the winner of these primaries, who will be, of course,
Francois Hollande, or even even worse, his successor! A minimum
specious way to surrender to a Social Democracy in historical crisis,
which, additionaly, demonstrates a work that would envy even Sarkozy.
In any case,
the last word now belongs not to the leaders, but to those at the
"bottom" who seem determined not to compromise with the
small retreats of the Valls government and lead their struggle until
the final victory. In other words, something is finally shaken in the
French society. This is nothing but the accumulated anger of millions
of citizens, led by the youth, who promise a sequel both exciting and
promising. In this gray and day by day more and more gray Europe of
unbearable austerity, a massive, radical movement by the French youth
and workers would be exactly what we need to regain courage and
optimism. Here and throughout our continent!
Translated
from the original source:
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