Upcoming Events

International | Anti-Capitalism

no events match your query!

New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link Ukraine Buys Huge Amounts of Russian Fue... Fri Jan 20, 2023 08:34 | Antonia Kotseva

offsite link Turkey Has Sent Ukraine Cluster Munition... Thu Jan 12, 2023 00:26 | Jack Detsch

offsite link New Israeli Government Promises to Talk ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 21:13 | Al Majadeen

offsite link Russia Training Iranian Pilots Ahead of ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 15:19 | The Times of Israel

offsite link Lukashenko Abolishes Copyright Protectio... Tue Jan 10, 2023 15:05 | Nikki Main

Anti-Empire >>

Human Rights in Ireland
A Blog About Human Rights

offsite link UN human rights chief calls for priority action ahead of climate summit Sat Oct 30, 2021 17:18 | Human Rights

offsite link 5 Year Anniversary Of Kem Ley?s Death Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:34 | Human Rights

offsite link Poor Living Conditions for Migrants in Southern Italy Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:14 | Human Rights

offsite link Right to Water Mon Aug 03, 2020 19:13 | Human Rights

offsite link Human Rights Fri Mar 20, 2020 16:33 | Human Rights

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link The WHO?s Plot to Seize Power Over Nation States in Future Pandemics Must Be Stopped Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:12 | Will Jones
The World Health Organisation is gearing up to persuade the world's governments to sign a new pandemic treaty that would allow the unelected body to seize power over nation states in future pandemics, warns Matt Ridley.
The post The WHO’s Plot to Seize Power Over Nation States in Future Pandemics Must Be Stopped appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Easter Quiz: Why Are White Things So White? Thu Mar 28, 2024 09:00 | Steven Tucker
It's hard to tell the difference these days between genuine news stories relating to 'anti-racist' ? or, more realistically, anti-white ? ideas and the spoofs and fakes. Pit your wits against our Easter quiz.
The post Easter Quiz: Why Are White Things So White? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Record Ozone ?Holes? Reported Despite 35-Year CFC Ban Thu Mar 28, 2024 07:00 | Chris Morrison
The ozone hole scare of the 1980s and the banning of CFCs was the template for the subsequent alarm promoting Net Zero. Yet the ozone hole is now back as large as ever, even after a 35-year CFC ban.
The post Record Ozone “Holes” Reported Despite 35-Year CFC Ban appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Thu Mar 28, 2024 00:50 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the virus and the vaccines, the ?climate emergency? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Heart Scarring Detected Over One Year After COVID-19 Vaccination, Two New Studies Find Wed Mar 27, 2024 19:30 | Will Jones
Heart scarring was detected more than one year after COVID-19 vaccination in some people who suffered myocarditis following receipt of a shot, researchers reported in new studies.
The post Heart Scarring Detected Over One Year After COVID-19 Vaccination, Two New Studies Find appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Moscow attack reminds us of the links between Islamists and Kiev's fundamentalis... Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:57 | en

offsite link Failure to assist a people in danger of genocide, by Hassan Hamadé Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:32 | en

offsite link Yugoslavia March 24, 1999 The Founding War of the New Nato, by Manlio Dinucci Sun Mar 24, 2024 05:15 | en

offsite link France opposes Russian Korean-style peace project in Ukraine Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:11 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°79 Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:40 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Search words: unwaged

FRANCE: unlimited general strike?

category international | anti-capitalism | news report author Thursday April 06, 2006 10:10author by mike r. Report this post to the editors

The National Coordination Sets out a Strategy for a Week of Actions

Meeting in Lille this weekend the national coordination reunited student activists and delegates from 114 higher education colleges and schools. In a up beat communiqué issued at the end of the assembly the national coordination are calling for moves towards an unlimited general strike as “the only issue for the national Days of Action, and the only way to push the government onto the defensive and repeal the “Equality of Chances” legislation.”



The unions are being asked to declare unlimited strike action from 4th April with direct actions to take place with effect from that date. On Wednesday 5th April school and higher education students will be taking direct action with union members against business premises, with occupations and public assemblies to help broaden the movement. Thursday 6th April has been called as a national day of action to block transport routes with Friday 7th April a day of support for arrested activists and against state repression with assemblies to take place at court premises around the country. Saturday 8th April will see the organisation of co-organised demonstrations with the unions bringing together workers, the unemployed/unwaged, précaires and temporary workers with students. During the school and University Easter holidays, which start in some areas this weekend the occupations of universities and schools will continue and on Tuesday 11th April, simultaneous demonstrations will again held in all towns and cities in France.

Tous ensemble, par la grève générale reconductible, nous allons gagner !

“All together, with an unlimited general strike we will win” ends the Communiqué

Source IndyMedia Marseille 3rd April 2006
http://marseille.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/5363.php

author by Cian - Socialist Party (CWI)publication date Thu Apr 06, 2006 18:48author email ComradeCian at eircom dot netauthor address Limerickauthor phone 085 7077919Report this post to the editors

Extend the action – for a general strike!
Robert Bechert, CWI (The International the Socialist Party is in)

The “Day of strikes and protests”, on Tuesday 4 April, saw renewed mass action and demonstrations across France. As we go to publication, these protests, in around 200 towns and cities, seem to be either the same size or even bigger than those on 28 March, which saw nearly 3 million demonstrate.

It is now eight weeks since the first mass demonstration against the CPE, the ‘First Job Contract’, that allows workers under 26 to be sacked without reason or warning during their first 24 months with any employer. While President Chirac has now offered a reworking of the law to reduce the CPE to 12 months and to force employers to give reasons for sackings, mass opposition remains firm. An opinion poll held after Chirac’s 31 March, TV broadcast, when he made the concessions, showed that 54% supported the protest movement, 56% were not satisfied with Chirac’s changes and that 62% thought the president was unconvincing.

Faced with this opposition, the main employer’s organisation, Medef, distanced itself from Chirac. Its president has now demagogically criticised the CPE for putting too many “burdens” onto young people. However, Medef’s proposals are to apply the principles behind the CPE to all workers. But this is precisely why the movement against the CPE is so widespread.

Millions of workers see the CPE as the second stage of a step-by-step plan to give more power to employers to intimidate and threaten workers. Last year, there was hardly any trade union opposition when the government passed the CNE, which lets a company with less than 20 employees sack any new worker during their first 24 months. Workers and youth were determined that this would not be repeated.

Now many within Chirac’s own UMP party are desperate to find a way out. Prime Minister Villepin is isolated and has rapidly lost support to Sarkozy, his rival in the coming race to become the UMP candidate in next year’s presidential election. Sarkozy, head of the UMP, and interior minister, criticised Villepin for ramming through the CPE law without enough discussion. Just before these latest protests one of Sarkozy’s allies said: “It’s over. It’s the end of the CPE. Finally we are going to have a real parliamentary debate and a real dialogue with the social partners.”

Attempt to divide movement
This, in fact, is the government’s new strategy - an attempt to divide the movement by offering the possibility of talks. Already leaders of the CFDT trade union federation indicated they are prepared to talk to the government if the CPE is “not implemented”, something which is a retreat from the movement’s call for its abolition. At least one leader of Unef, the largest university student organisation, indicated a readiness to talk to the government on the basis of the limited concessions Chirac has already offered.

Chirac may be forced to make some further concessions, but as Medef has made clear, the employers will return to the offensive.

Despite the near doubling of the numbers on the Thursday 28 March protests, compared with those participating on demonstrations on Saturday, 18 March, the trade union leaders continued not to call for serious action against the government.

The result is that, despite the continuing mass opposition to both the CPE and the government, there is a danger that this movement will not achieve the victory that is possible.

Initiatives from below
Initiatives are starting to come from below, with groups of workers discussing continuing their strikes into Wednesday, 5 April. If such strikes develop in the coming days they could provide an impetus for the wider movement to escalate. It is clear that such a mobilisation from below will not simply be around the CPE or the CPE and CNE, but would take up the general issues facing working people. A movement like this could, in today’s France, spread rapidly, especially if it gave confidence to private sector workers to join in. Without such a development, it is an open to question how long only weekly protests can be maintained.

Gauche révolutionnaire (the CWI in France), linked building support for the “Days of action” with arguing both for an extension of strikes into 5 April and calling for a general strike to unify the struggle against the CPE with those struggles against the other attacks on living standards that Chirac and his government are attempting to carry out.

Although Gauche révolutionnaire explains that, ultimately, only a government that breaks with capitalism can solve the crisis facing working people, it is clear that, at this time, many of those participating in the protests look at the Socialist Party (PS) as either the “lesser evil” or the only alternative to the UMP in the coming elections.

This means that the Socialist Party could win next year’s elections, but this will not lead to a fundamental change in the situation. Time and again, the experience of Socialist Party governments is that they operate within capitalism. This is why, nearly 25 years since Mitterrand became the first ‘Socialist’ French president, in 1981, French workers and youth are facing an offensive to cut their living standards.

Gauche révolutionnaire calls for a new political force, a new workers’ party, which can combine today’s mighty wave of resistance with a genuinely socialist struggle to change society. In the 2002 presidential election, after the bitter experience of the Jospin ‘Plural Left’ government, over 10% voted for parties calling themselves ‘Trotskyists’. This year, over two months of struggle show again the huge potential that exists in France for a new workers’ party. This potential will be strengthened by both the experience of struggle and the disappointment that a new Socialist Party government will inevitably bring.

Related Link: http://www.SocialistWorld.net
author by aunty trotpublication date Fri Apr 07, 2006 16:53author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The French dont put up with the nonsence that the rest of Europe tolerates from their masters in the political class. I hope they dont allow Trotskyists to mess it up for them!

 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy