French students force government to retreat

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(Banner at Dec. 4 demonstration: Devaquet [Minister of Education], high-school and university students are against you) 16 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1987 By N. BLACKWELL Over 1 million French high-school and university students marched in the streets three times in three weeks against the capitalist government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac.

On Dec. 8, Chirac was forced to withdraw proposed legislation that would have been a first step in undermining the system of free university education open to every high-school graduate in France.

This right to equal opportunity to a higher education was won after the close of World War II by a powerful French working class that had taken Paris from the Nazi occupiers before allied troops had reached their city.

Chirac's retreat was announced in the face of another mass march and general strike scheduled to take place two days later. French students, organized nationally with branches in most of the 70 large state-run universities, had appealed to the workers' mass organizations to join in the strike and demonstration.

Most major unions and working-class political organizations declared their support for the planned peaceful demon -stration and general strike on Dec. 10. The expected mammoth protest, it is clear, forced Chirac's retreat.

The students' and the workers' organiza -tions went ahead anyway with the planned demonstration to drive home the real cause of their victory and to protest the killing by police of a student, Malik Oussekine.

Racist legislation

The police murder of Malik Oussekine, who is of Algerian descent, dramatizes the concern of students and workers with Prime Minister Chirac's scheduled introduction of racist legislation attacking the citizenship rights of non-white immigrants.

Having forced Chirac to withdraw his attack against education, the Dec. 10 demonstration shifted its focus to other issues, particularly Chirac's proposed racist nationality law.

On the eve of this demonstration, Chirac again was forced to retreat. Canceling a special session of the National Assembly, he postponed action on his package of new reactionary laws until the next regular paliamentary session in April 1987.

On Dec. 10, 1 million people again turned out in the streets of Paris and other French cities. The youth came to pay homage to Malik and to demand an end to police brutality. "Never Again"—a refer -ence to Malik's death—was a main theme of the march.

Tens of thousands of workers organized in the CGT, FEN, and CFDT trade-union contingents joined the students. One banner carried by the railworkers of the Southwest Paris rail yards stated, "Victory of the youth, Bravo! You have pointed the way forward!"

Another banner carried by the autoworkers at the large Renault-Billancourt plant put it another way: "The students have shown it is possible to make the government retreat!"

The government's proposal triggered the huge response among students who, in turn, precipitated a response by workers. The workers responded partly in solidarity with student demands and partly because of their own parallel concerns.

The memory of the 1968 student upsurge in solidarity with the Vietnamese Revo -lution and with other mass struggles in Informations Ouvrieres tnr-af contres Czechoslovakia and Latin America also served as an example for students to attack the problems of today.

Capitalist austerity

While no one could have predicted the sudden eruption of so massive a protest movement, this is easily explained.

Cutbacks in social services, like in our own country, are being carried out by capitalist governments everywhere. In France, this is expressed in overcrowded class rooms and crumbling and otherwise degenerating schools. Moreover, growing unemployment-there as here has resulted in one in three French youths, besides those still in school, unable to find jobs.

French workers, too, are feeling the effects of the developing crisis of the world capitalist economy.

Over 2.5 million French workers are unemployed. The government recently announced that 20,000 steel jobs and 25,000 public-employee jobs would be eliminated in 1987. The government also announced a cut in 1987 of 9.5 billion Francs in healthcare allocations.

On Dec. 10, two days after Chirac was forced to withdraw his university "reform" program, the Council of Ministers adopted two measures that would (1) reintroduce night work for women, (2) reintroduce Sunday work for all workers, (3) eliminate overtime pay, and (4) eliminate the eight-hour day. The measures must now be ratified and signed by President François Mitterand.

The French government retreated in the face of the student upsurge, but it is still set on reversing the major gains made by the working class over the past 40 years in order to shore up the faltering private-profit system.

The tasks ahead A recent statement by the Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), French section of the Fourth International, summed up the current situation and the tasks before the labor and student movements. The declaration, dated Dec. 10, states:

"The youth showed the way to make the government retreat. Now, all of us united, must take the offensive against all aspects of the government's austerity drive. The proposed racist law on nationality must not only be adjourned. It must be withdrawn!

"Although Chirac has paused in his attacks, it is clear he will try to introduce new measures against the workers with each passing day. He has already submitted two proposed laws that would reform the National Employment Code and would reintroduce night work for women.

"Chirac must be forced to withdraw these laws. And Mitterand, who proclaims his hostility to the policies of the Chirac government, must refuse to sign these decrees.

"We must put an end to this reactionary government. Through the unity of the youth and the entire working class, through the unity of the trade unions and working-class political parties, this will be possible."

Lesson of French events The lesson for us is clear. The corporate cutbacks and takebacks in this country, together with the escalated U.S. intervention in Central America-will inevitably lead millions here, too, to rise up in defense of class interests.

Whatever issue may set off the mass fightback, successful actions such as those in France will encourage the movement for economic and social justice.

French students have again shown their power. But most important is the capacity of students to trigger a fighting response by their natural allies, the working class. In such an alliance, the workers' economic power is multiplied and becomes an irresistable political force.

In the course of this struggle, a new fighting leadership will emerge to lead the workers and their allies to victory.

A national coalition is being formed today to organize a massive protest on April 25 in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco against U.S. intervention in Central America, against apartheid, against the nuclear arms race, and for jobs and justice for all.

Students can play a big role in helping to build a massive youth component to these antiwar demonstrations.