French upsurge threatens Chirac LAST MARCH the alliance of right wing parties led by Jaques Chirac won the French parliamentary elections, defeating the Socialist Party and CP-led left. But the massive student movement which defeated the proposed university reform and growing working class resistance have thrown Chirac's government onto the defensive. Chirac's programme of austerity and privatisation is a French version of Thatcherism. It has taken less than a year for mass resistance to
In fact, the student movement, although by far the most dramatic and successful movement to date, did not spark off the anti-government upsurge. In October there was a one day national strike in the public sector against government policies. Important strikes in the naval yards, in transport and telecommunications, as well as the long strike at Agence France Presse, broke out before the student
The political context in which the unrest has occurred is the peculiar one in which there is a right wing government, but a Socialist Party president — Francois Mitterrand. This arrangement is referred to as 'cohabitation' and Mitterrand remains president until 1988. Mitterrand has been highly cautious in opposing reactionary measures by 'his' prime minister Chirac — hoping to manoeuvre for the 'centre ground' in preparation for the 1988 elections. But he has been happy to capitalise on mass opposition to Chirac, vetoing the proposed new 'flexibility of labour' law and expressing himself 'at one' with the students. What of course he has not done in break with the whole cohabitation game and systematically veto all the measures of Chirac.
Both the workers' and students' mobilisations have exhibited high 8
FRANCE degrees of militancy and audacious forms of organisation. The students utilised mass assemblies and other democratic forms of organisation throughout the movement. The participation of women and the general 'feminisation' of the consciousness of the movement was noted by everyone. Among the workers, rank and file initiatives and committees have been to the fore. For example, the current national railway strike which started before Christmas was organised by a rank and file committee at the Gare du Nord in Paris, and not by official union decision. In the early part of 1987 gas, electricity and postal workers are expected to join the strike movement.
These developments are accelerating the political recomposition in the left and the workers movement. In the last elections the Socialist Party emerged as the dominant working class party with 32 per cent of the votes, as against only 10 per cent for the Communist Party. New left wing currents are emerging in the SP, in particular Convergence Socialiste and a smaller group, Questions Socialistes, both led by ex-supporters of the tar left. Convergence Socialiste played an important role in the student movement as part of the leadership of one of the student unions and Questions Socialistes provide the main leaders of the mass anti-racist movement, SOS-Racisme.
A new political situation is emerging in France which will have important implications for the whole of Europe. Here PENNY O'MALLEY reports from Paris on the student movement, as we also public an interview with SYLVIA ZAPPI, a leader of the Trotskyist Jeunesses Communistes Revolutionnaires and a prominent member of the students' co-ordinating committee.
'68 is out of date - '86 is better! THE UNIVERSITY and school-student movement that shook France in late November and early December has had a profound impact. In Christmas week, strikes by railway workers, Metro drivers in Paris, and sailors in the merchant navy threw French travel plans into disarray. In between times were the week long strike of the biggest French press agency, Agence France Presse and strikes in the government job centres. The student movement has begun to restore faith among workers that struggles can win.
In less than one month, mass mobilisations of university and high-school students forced the right-wing French government of Jacques Chirac to back down on proposals to reform the French university and lycée systems. Coming some three months after a widely-quoted opinion poll had purported to show that French young people were 'apolitical', the movement took most observers by surprise.
Not only did the government withdraw the contested Devaquet law on the universities but it cancelled the proposed special session of parliament in December which was to consider a number of other measures which had provoked widespread opposition.
the movement turned to
anger against the CRS riot
police
The Devaquet and Monory proposals would have introduced a university system similar to the British one. The universities would have been given greater autonomy to decide on admission of students. The diplomas received by students would carry the name of their university. The ruling bodies of the universities would have become dominated by the senior professors at the expense of the teaching staff. Admission fees would be raised. At the same time the automatic right of all those with the baccalaureat to go to university would have been ended with the introduction of three types of 'bac', only one of which would have given this right. Funds for technical lycées would have been cut.
These proposals, aimed at bringing the education system into line with the needs of big business, dressed-up talk of 'educating for jobs', came at a time when 11.5% (nearly 1 million) of the young people in France are unemployed. Going to university is preferable to joining the ranks of the unemployed and is justly regarded as a democratic right.
The first sign of the swelling protest among students was the national coordinating meeting held at the invitation of Caen students on November 15th, which started the strike movement in Caen and in the Paris suburb of Villetaneuse. It was followed on November
International No 8 January/February 1987
LIN VAQUET ÇAVA... MAQUET BONJOUR LES DECATS!!!!
22nd by a student 'parliament' (états généraux) originally called by the students union UNEF-ID' but in fact a gathering of the whole movement.
On the November 27th day of action over half-a-million students marched in all the major towns. After this major show of strength, Chirac let it be understood that the size of the national demonstration called in Paris for the 4th December would influence how they would proceed. In preparation for December 4th, the student coordination called for occupation of the universities.
On 4th December, a monster demonstration of a million strong brought central Paris to a standstill as contingents from faculties and lycées all over France marched, danced and chanted their way from the Place de la Bastille to the Invalides. As the demonstrators crowded onto the Esplanade of the Invalides, a delegation from the national student coordinating body went to meet the Education Minister René Monory and his minister for the universities, Alain Devaquet. At this point the government mades its first blunder. No concessions were made. Claiming that the demonstration was not as big as planned (official police estimates put the demonstration at 200,000), and that the movement was 'manipulated' by the far left, Monory refused to withdraw the proposals.
The students' delegates reported back to the crowds waiting for them. Disbelief and International No 8 January/February 1987
FRANCE Demonstrating in Paris anger exploded. Some demonstrators tried to move off in the direction of the National Assembly, confronting the poolice on the banks of the Seine. The notorious riot police, the CRS, used water cannons and then tear gas to try to disperse the demonstrators. Ig noring the rule that tear gas grenades should not be directed at people, the cRs severely injured one student who lost an eye and is still dangerously ill and another who was knocked unconscious. Another student had his hand blown off as he picked up a grenade.
the 'apoliticism' of the
movement was a distrust of
established politicians
A sizeable contingent of the demonstrators then moved into the Latin Quarter. Violent police charges and student resistance continued until the early hours. The mood swung from reform of the educational system to protest against the police violence and use of state repression to bully the movement. Slogans calling for the resignation of the Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, for an end to repression and rejecting the use of 'Chilean' type methods were taken up by the students and school students who only a few hours earlier were the 'apolitical, well-behaved' children of the 'new generation'.
LAVOISIER
In the early hours of the morning, the national student coordination called a further demonstration for that afternoon. Again, tens of thousands of students demonstrated. They interspersed solemn silence with protests against police brutality. They called for resignation of government ministers and chanted that it was not in government offices but 'in the streets that laws are made'. Again the police decided to use violence to disperse the demonstrators and evict the students occupying the Sorbonne.
That evening a student, Malik Oussedine, was beaten and killed by police on his way home. This provoked tens of thousands to again demonstrate in Paris and throughout France in silent protest at police violence on Saturday 6th December. Once again the day ended in violence as police tried to break up the demonstration. The actions of police provocateurs led to further violence in the Latin Quarter that evening
The students had already won much popular support for their opposition to 'universities run by the laws of the market' and their demand for 'equality for all'. But from this point support gathered apace and the government began to make its first retreat, withdrawing some of the most contested points in the new law (on restrictive admission procedures and admission fees) on the evening of Friday 5 December. But the widespread protest over the behaviour of the police forced the government into its final humiliating and 9
total withdrawal of the proposals on Monday 8th December.
But this climbdown came too late to stop the growth of anti-government feeling and the confidence in democratic and collective action which had grown among the students. Despite the lunchtime announcement of the climbdown, many thousands again demonstrated throughout the country that afternoon. The president, Francois Mitterrand, publicly stated on 9 December that he was 'in step' with the students.
Since the start of the movement the press had made much of its 'apolitical' and goodhumoured style. The first two demonstrations had been colourful and lively affairs with many amusing slogans adapted fromn well-known television jingles and popular songs (unfortunately not easy to translate into English!). After 5 December the demonstrations were of a different nature and an 'Appeal to the population' for support was made by the national student coordination on the sixth. by many trade-unionists, parents and others. The slogans called for an end to police brutality, and for the resignations of the Education Ministers Monory and Devaquet, the Interior Minister Pasqua and the Prime Minister Jacques Chirac himself.
The movement formally ended when the Wednesday 10 December demonstration originally called as a memorial for the murdered Malik became also a march in sad and bitter triumph at having won the withdrawal of the Monory and Devaquet proposals, but at such a price. The slogan of the march was 'never again', never again police violence and death.
Although the union confederations except the CP-dominated CGT, called off the general strike originally planned for that day, widespread feeling at the base forced the CFDT and the FEN, and locally even FO, to call for support for the demonstration. A strong presence of trade-unionists was noted on all the demonstrations and in some places such as Montpellier they comprised up to 50 per cent of the demonstrators.
From the Thursday morning students in the schools and universities returned to their classes, often discussing arrangements with their teachers for special classes to catch up on the work they had missed. The national coordination voted to dissolve itself, singing the 'Internationale'. The coordination announced that états généraux on the future of the university system would take place in March, and would be prepared through discussions in every university faculty.
Although the movement is over, it has left its mark. Devaquet has gone; the two main parties in Chirac's right-wing coalition government the UDF (Union de la démocratie francaise) and the RPR (Rassemblement pour la république) are at each others' throats and their third partner, the far-right Front National, is accusing both of capitulating to hooligans. This was the first time in ten years that a right-wing government has been forced to retreat by the mass movement.
Together with withdrawing the education 10 reforms, Chirac postponed proposals to pri-
FRANCE vatise i prisons, tighten up laws for dealing with drug addicts who refuse treatment, end reimbursement for abortions and, most important of all to young people, to reform the nationality The present nationality laws automatically grant French nationality to children born and brought up on French soil.
The proposed reforms would force these young people to make a special request for French nationality, take an oath of loyalty and possibly by refused, particularly if they
Tany, even minor, criminal record. Despite the government's attempt to pretend that this 'out of respect for different cultures' and that they do not want to 'force' young North Africans to become French against their will, the anti-racist movement has rightly seen that this is nothing more than again an attempt to make these 'second generation immgrants' feel excluded and set apart. The main previous experience of mass activity by the students is SOS Racisme, a broad anti-racist movement which has many similarities to the Anti-Nazi League. SOS Racisme was prominent in supporting the students and is strong among lycée students. Recognising the movement's anti-racism, many young North African workers participated in the demonstrations.
A favourite slogan of the early days was "68
is out of date, 86 is better'. It was a bigger movement — in 68 the biggest demonstrations were about 30,000. Women played a more prominent role. Even if there was a tendency to over-represent men in the leading bodies, women students in some faculties quickly asserted themselves and ensured they had a fair share of the delegates to the national coordinating meetings. The direct democracy of the movement, daily general meetings, election and recall of all delegates if they did not respect their mandates ensured that, whatever the press claimed, this was not a movement manipulated by the left, neither the 'official left' (Socialist or Communist Parites) nor the far left.
In fact, the 'apoliticism' vaunted by the media was a distrust of political organisations and 'politicians' rather than disinterest in questions other than those directly concerning students. But there was hostility to what was seen as attempts by the left or the trade unions to coopt the movement. The main political experience of the bulk of this generation was under the left government of 1981 to March 1986, and the feeling of distrust this engendered among those who voted for it.
But the left did have its place in the movement. The national coordination had members of the Young Communists, Young Socialists, Convergence Socialiste?, and the JCR' present as delegates from their faculties. But the places they held were dependent on the confidence expressed in them by other students.
This practical democracy and the determination of the movement to refuse negotiations and accept nothing less than the complete withdrawal of the proposals provided the best possible basis on which to take the movement forward in a united way. In a context where the tradition of workers' struggles is strongly marked by the division into different trade-union confederations and political differentiation this was an important gain. If the workers' movement takes this lesson to heart then Chirac and his government could be in for a rocky road. Notes 1. Only a minority of students belong to this union which does not have the official status of the National Union of Students. 2. This current originally split from the Trotskyist Parti Communiste Internationaliste of Pierre Lambert, taking most of its student base and is now within the Socialist Party (although not its youth organisation). It dominates the leadership of the UNEF-ID 3. The Jeunesses Communiste Révolutionaires (JCR) youth organisation in solidarity with the LCR, French section of the Fourth International, started a campaign of explanation and opposition to the government's proposals on education from the start of the academic year. Members of the JCR, such as Sylvia Zappi, student at Censier (Paris), were leaders of the strike movement in their faculty and elected members of the coordination and its 14-strong bureau.
The JCR turned its monthly journal Autre Chose into a daily newspaper printed in 50,000 copies from Friday 28th November to Monday 15th December. Distributed regularly throughout France in universities and lycées it was the only daily bulletin of news and view of the movement.
International No 8 January/February 1987
OLFILE ROME DUU PROCIOFVAELE
Scenes from student demonstrations International No 8 January/February 1987
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5 ZUNES ENFUC EN "FORMATA 11
SYLVIA ZAPPI is a student at Censier in Paris where, as a member of the national student coordinating committee, she played a key role in the actions. A leading member of the Jeunesses Communistes Revolutionnaire (JCR), a youth organisation in solidarity with the Fourth International, she talks below about the situation in the colleges since Chirac's retreat and about the part played by women in the struggle. (The interview is taken from one originally published in Autre Chose, the daily bulletin of the Jor produced during the events of December 15, 1986) How are things going in your college? At Censier we all felt it was a bit of a mess. Students were saying that if Chirac had announced his retreat earlier we could have avoided the violence and death. There was an overwhelming feeling for continuing vigilance. Everyone wants to watch out for anything else the government might have up its sleeve (like decrees or circulars) in relation to education. Another feeling that is very strong is the feeling of being brought together, of the desire to continue discussing together about the colleges and the fact that no one wanted to go back to their classes after such an experience. There have been parties going on since Monday on this campus. We lived a new life, we developed new relationships with the lecturers and we thought 'shit, we've got to go back to lessons after all this.' At the same time there is a feeling that we will have to work hard to catch up. 12 How will the general assembly called by the
F R A student coordinating committees for March 1987, be organised? The discussions must continue in all the colleges. On Friday at Censier, there was a feeling of frustration because the general meeting did not go well because so many of us wanted to carry on being active. People were coming up and asking me when the police committee or the vigilance committee was meeting. They did not want to atomised again like before the strike. The basis of the policy committees in each college is that put forward by the general assembly, that is, for equality in relation to study, for automatic entry to university for those who pass the baccalaureat, in the subjects of their choice, for the maintenance of national diplomas, automatic re-entry in the third year of the DEUG and DUT (technical) degree courses and for equality between French and foreign students... And of course another issue very much at present in the students actions will be for the reform of the Nationality Code. at Censier? Our college is 75-80% women. But at the beginning it was mainly the men who led the strike. They were everywhere, on the platforms, speaking in the general elections, not to mention was just as bad: four blokes and me. At coordinating meetings the same thing was reproduced: the room was full of men though there was a slight three women out of 14. But that was
N CE Interview with JCR leader 50-50. Did women play an important role in the strike in the stewarding forces. The election of delegates to the coordinating committee improvement in the course of the events. At the actual committee there were only say L
also the fault of the organisations within the committee who attached very little importance to the issue of feminisation...
But the women wanted to assert themselves at all levels. In my college they were very clever in the way they went about it. They did not want to be seen as hysterical. They carried out their responsibilities despite the men who at the beginning were so predominant.
But when the stewarding force was set up there was a huge debate because some people, most notably the members of the Convergence Socialiste were in favour of an all male force. They explained this by saying that you had to be strong and muscley in the face of aggression. We said that this was not the criterion. That what was needed was to create a collective team who had confidence in each other. The Montpelier delegation at the first coordinating meeting was made up entirely of men. The women were really fed up and set up a group 'against machismo in the general assembly'. At the last coordination, the delegation was
Even though specifically women's demands like abortion have been taken up in the past at Censier, as no doubt they have been in other colleges, the most important thing was the determination of the women not to let themselves be marginalised but to play an equal role with men in the strike. At Censier, they made up over half of the strike committee and they ran the policy committee, the organisation committee, the media committee and the sitoo! committee. They orgarised trie pickets, representations a he Censier annexes. They were it: so: ed in the stewarding forces see = -e= est could not ignore it. hat # 2ed to
•-=-. February 1987
return VALERIE COULTAS spoke to him about the problems of socialism and democracy in Eastern Europe and the attitude which Solidarnosc (Solidarity) in Poland. It goes without saying perhaps shared by many on the British left. We shall return to Solidarnosc
Last autumn TONY BENN went to Poland for a week. On his
socialists should have towards anti-bureaucratic movements like
that the views expressed by Tony Benn are not those of this
journal. Nonetheless. Tony Benn's views are, in broad terms,
and the struggle for socialist democracy in subsequent issues.