BY IAN GRANT AND RAFIK BENALI
PARIS - Thousands of workers marched here on May 1 in one of several demonstrations called by the major trade union federations in France. The theme of the May Day marches was opposition to racism and unemployment - central issues in the upcoming elections. French parliamentary elections will take place in two rounds at the end of May and beginning of June.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the fascist National Front (FN), also staged a rally the same day in central Paris.

This was the first time in 14 years that the main rival union federations allied to the Socialist Party (PS) and French Communist Party (PCF) have called joint actions to mark the international working-class holiday. The two political parties have also agreed to an electoral coalition pact. Other delegations in the Paris demonstration included those from the Sans Papiers (Without Papers), immigrant workers who are campaigning for legal status, and antiracist organizations. Contingents of Tamil and Kurdish workers also participated. A contingent of Guyanese immigrant workers carried signs calling for "France Out of Guyana" and "Self- determination for Guyana."

Estimates of the crowd ranged from 23,000 to 60,000. The march was the largest May Day action in years. L'Humanité, the daily paper of the French Communist Party, reported on provincial marches of several thousand each, including in Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux.

The National Front rally reportedly drew 8,000.

Elections to the French parliament, due in 1998, have been called nearly a year early by the ruling conservative coalition. The Union for French Democracy (UDF) and Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR), while holding a commanding majority in the French parliament, aim to win a new mandate in this ballot.

Previous efforts to make French workers pay to shore up the employers' falling profit rates through cuts in the social wage - pensions, unemployment compensation, and health care - were met with huge labor mobilizations in 1995. But the French rulers have carried through some social cuts and have continued their probes for taking back more. The impact of these struggles still inspire militant actions by various groups of workers and youth seeking to defend themselves from the effects of the economic depression.

In order to advance their competitive position through improving profitability at home, and fully use their weight as a military and nuclear power to carve out access to markets in the Balkans, as well as in Asia and Africa, the French capitalists face a pressing necessity to confront the resistance of workers at home and effectively implement such measures. At the same time they loathe the social explosions their policies may ignite.

Interviewed in the April 27 Journal Du Dimanche, Didier Pineau-Valencienne, president of Schneider, an international business consortium with operations in 130 countries, voiced his agreement with French president Jacques Chirac's decision to call early elections. "The stakes are so high that the country needs a renewed majority, with a new legitimacy," he said.

"My American, British, German, and Asian colleagues don't understand us any longer. They ask themselves why France, with so many economic trump cards is unable to take advantage of them. Everywhere, there are blockages, instabilities that impede us from modernizing of the country," Pineau- Valencienne continued.

"Public spending still represents 56 percent of the wealth produced in France," he added. "In other countries it's 30 or 40 percent. This is an unbearable overload for the French `horsé that's prevented from running despite being a thoroughbred."

According to an article in the British Economist, taxes stand at 45.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, the highest in any major capitalist country in the western hemisphere. A quarter of all workers are employed by the state, compared to 1 in 6 in the United Kingdom and 1 in 7 in the United States and Germany. Despite recent sales of shares of nationalized companies to private investors, the public sector in France is still one of the largest in western Europe.

The pressure exerted by the resistance of French workers over the last two years to the austerity plans of the ruling class are reflected in the program put forward by the electoral coalition of the Socialist Party and French Communist Party.

The joint PCF/PS platform outlines as goals the creation of 700,000 jobs for young people and the "progressive reduction" of the working week to 35 hours without cutting pay. The document says this will be made possible by increased productivity and cancellation of the planned sale of the state-owned companies Air France, Thompson, and France- Télécom. Unemployment in France hovers just under 13 percent - one of the highest in Europe.

The joint platform also proposes to get rid of the "Pasqua-Debré laws" named after interior ministers Charles Pasqua and Jean-Louis Debré. These laws impose restrictions on immigrants' rights to travel, marry French citizens, and renew residence permits. Large demonstrations opposing these bills took place in Paris while they were being debated in parliament in March. But the social democratic/Stalinist coalition promises to implement "new ways to fight against illegal immigration," impose "vigorous sanctions against companies who flout the law" by hiring undocumented immigrants, and establish greater political cooperation with other governments to control the flow of immigrants.

In a move aimed at winning support among workers, Le Pen took the opportunity at his May Day address to advance the FN's policy of raising the minimum wage to 7,000 French francs [US$1 = 5.5 FF]. The FN claims it would solve the problem of unemployment by encouraging women to leave their jobs and stay at home, and by imposing what Le Pen refers to as preference nationale - laws imposing severe penalties on employers who hire immigrant workers and abolishing labor provisions banning race and sex discrimination.

According to opinion polls published in the daily Le Monde, two thirds of those asked saw no meaningful difference between the ruling conservative coalition and the PS/PCF alliance in their policies on unemployment. Half of the respondents said the policies of the two main electoral blocs on immigration and on achieving the projected European common currency are pretty much the same.

Ian Grant is a member of the Transport and General Workers Union in London. Rafik Benale is a member of the Young Socialists in Paris.  
 
 
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