"If this thing goes through, we are dead," a rail worker at the Austerlitz train station in Paris told Militant reporters, referring to the drive by the French capitalist class to slash social welfare. "But we are not dead yet!"
This comment is an accurate reflection of the stakes in the class conflict rocking this country, for all working people and their unions on one side, and for the bourgeoisie and its government on the other.
The French rulers are facing growing competition by their imperialist rivals, especially in Washington, London, and Bonn. They have already failed twice in previous attempts over the last two years to slash social benefits and maintain a strong franc. Now Paris is trying in one sweeping blow to make up for past failures - targeting public workers' retirement rights, medical benefits, and jobs.
The French employing class aims to deal a serious enough blow to the working class as a whole - beginning with workers in the public sector - to open the road to a significant lowering of labor costs, and boost their competitive standing and profits.
France's capitalists are driven by the growing crisis of their system of exploitation and oppression, which is part and parcel of the worldwide depression - with its accelerating march toward massive unemployment, misery, racism, fascism, and war. On that level, Paris is just following the lead of their main rivals, particularly Washington and London.
But President Jaques Chirac, Prime Minister Alain Juppé, and company may have set off uncontrollable forces. Their government had not planned for the scope of the resistance by working people. The capitalist and landlord classes rarely have such foresight.
The current wave of strikes, rallies, demonstrations, and other labor and student actions is the most important since the one-month massive labor upsurge of May 1968. It is certainly the most sustained working-class resistance to the capitalists' attacks on wages, jobs, social services, and democratic and union rights in the recent period anywhere in the world.
That's why capitalists everywhere have rallied behind their blood brothers in France. They know that a victory by the Juppé regime will open the door to further and deeper attacks against working people not only there, but in all other capitalist countries. On the other hand, if Paris fails once again, working people around the world will have a powerful example that can be emulated throughout Europe and beyond.
This wave of strikes, combined with the upsurge of student struggles, also provides the best opportunity for working people to combat Paris's terror campaign against Algerian and other immigrants unleashed under the "Vigipirate" plan. The soldiers and cops sent into the streets - allegedly to check "terrorism" - are the troops of the enemy class, who will one day be turned against workers' struggles.
Working people the world over have a direct stake in the outcome of the struggle waged by our brothers and sisters in France. They are showing the way forward for all toilers, for the "wretched of the earth." To defend jobs, unions, and the social wage, workers have to fight the ruling class in the streets and in the process transform themselves into a self-confident class that can take political power.
The order of the day is international working-class solidarity with the workers and youth of France. Now is the time to convince our unions, student groups, and other organizations to send messages of support and delegations to France.
An essential element of solidarity is to make the truth known about the struggle. The big-business media is either silent or falsifying the facts about the battles unfolding. Help get out the truth by reading and circulating the Militant at work, to strikers, among youth and other working people.
No to the Juppé plan!
International solidarity with workers and students in France!