France in crisis as strike wave shakes regime

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By ALAIN PARIS—Since last fall, the political and social crisis in France has deepened at a stunning rate.

The popularity of Premier Edith Cresson's government has fallen to 25 percent in the polls. And for the first time, President Mitterrand has been dragged down also by the government's unpopular policies.

Repeatedly, the goverment has had to confront the anger of the farmers and many sections of the working class without being able to offer even the beginning of a soiution to the problems raised.

First of all, in September, there was a big demonstration of farmers in Paris, followed by protests in the agricultural areas that prevented government ministers and representatives from visiting the countryside. The target of the protests was the entire agricultural policy of the European Economic Community. And the French goverment cannot detach itself from that without threatening the whole structure of Wester European capitalist integration.

Then it was the turn of the wage workers. They are no longer accepting austerity and losses in their buying power while the profits of the companies are increasing.

Nurses and hospital workers went on strike, holding demonstrations of tens of thousands over a period of several weeks. Social workers struck. Workers at the big Renault car plants went out, demanding higher wages. They organized strike pickets and got support from the population, but these strikes could not succeed because they lacked the backing of the big trade-union confederations.

There have been strikes on the docks, where workers mobilized against the government's attempts to change their status and take back their previous gains. Regular mobilizations have continued.

There have been strikes in steel, supported by the populations of entire regions that are suffering from the rundown of the industry. Often these strikes have taken a radical character, involving clashes with the police.

There have been strikes of public workers. In October, a day of action held by the Contédération Générale du Travail, and Force Ouvrière public workers' unions brought out tens of thousands of demonstrators in dozens of cities.

On all the other social fronts, pressure is building up. In the working-class suburbs of the big cities and in the Paris region, young people of immigrant parents are sporadically exploding in rebellion— spurred by unemployment, hand-to-mouth jobs, and threats to social welfare and to the health and education systems.

Disaffected voters

These problems are being aggravated as well by a moral, political, and constitutional crisis. It involves financial scandals implicating the politicians (especially the ruling Socialist Party) and the discrediting and disarray of the Communist Party, which is hard hit by the collapse of the Stalinist regimes that it always supported.

The result is that left-wing voters are becoming disaffected from the parties to which they gave a majority in the national legislative elections of 1988.

Mitterrand, Cresson, and all the "Socialist" politicians have become discredited and have been rejected by public opinion— most of all by those who put them in power.

The Socialist Party is looking for any expedient to avoid getting thrown out by a popular stayaway from the polls in the regional elections on March 2. The party is being shaken by a deep crisis, and Socialist members of parliament are beginning to abandon the ship.

France is heading inexorably toward social and political upsets that will mark a sharp break with the relative stability of the 1980s.

The ultrarightist National Front is continuing to gain ground on the basis of its racist and antiforeign propaganda, making immigrants the scapegoats for society's evils.

By repeating the same tune, the "respectable" right is fanning the flames of the National Front rather than containing them. Meanwhile, these parliamentary rightists are divided about the advisability of allying themselves with the National Front in the elections.

In any case, with respect to the economic and social questions, the right and the ultra-right have no solutions to offer other than stiffening the present government's anti-working-class policy.

Mitterrand has tried to regain the offensive with proposals for constitutional reforms-shortening the presidential term from seven to five years and establishing some degree of proportionality in elections. But public opinion has not been taken in by this, and such propositions have only highlighted the crisis of the institutions of the Fifth Republic, which came out of De Gaulle's coup d'état in 1958.

The consequences of Mitterrand's domestic policy have not been counterbalanced at all by his foreign policy.

The idea that the 1992 united Europe plan holds out little hope for renewed stability was reinforced by his hesitations during the August putsch in Moscow. He, like the other European imperialist leaders, has found himself a spectator to the events that have thrown East Europe into turmoil, without being able to get any handle on them.

New opportunities This situation offers new opportunities for internationalist revolutionaries. In the recent strikes, the workers have had to face the divisiveness that characterizes the French trade-union movement. The four or five union confederations are unable to act together, and they do everything possible to block any united mobilization of the working class.

The workers' disaffection from the union leaderships is growing, and they are experiencing in action the need for trade-union unity, for coordination of their cross-trade and action committees, and the need for a general mobilization.

Facing the rise of the ultraright and the discrediting of the big working-class parties, revolutionists have to make fundamental criticisms of the existing government, which was elected by the left but is carrying out a right-wing policy.

By mounting a large-scale campaign for working-class unity—for a national march on Paris by wage earners and the unemployed against the government's policies-they can offer a real alternative to the wave of racism stirred up by the right and the ultraright and encouraged by the government's anti-immigration moves.

Two important tests are due in January. On the 17th of the month, pro-choice groups that have been formed recently will hold a national assembly to demand state financing of all forms of contraception and a guarantee of the right to abortion.

On Jan. 25, there will be a national demonstration of all the organizations of the immigrants and of SOS-Racisme [a national anti-racist organization]. It is being supported by 70 organizations, and has been called to oppose racism, discrimination, and the ultraright, and to support the right of immigrants to vote and to gain asylum.

The organizations of the far left, most of which claim to be Trotskyist, have to be able to unite in action and link up with the left oppositions in the Socialist and Communist parties.

This is a necessary step in order to put forward a working-class alternative that can represent the interests of the workers and youth who have become alienated from the policies of the Communist and Socialist parties but do not want to see the right get back into the government.