BY NAT LONDON
PARIS, France - As unemployment continues to spiral upward in France and throughout Europe, bus, trolley and metro workers are fighting to defend themselves from the effects of the economic depression. These unionists are striking throughout the country now for a 35-hour workweek with no loss in pay and lowering the retirement age to 55.

The official workweek here is 39 hours and most workers retire at age 60. The workers say that a reduced workweek and early retirement would create jobs for younger workers and bring down the unemployment rate, which has reached 12.7 percent. According to most estimates in the media, joblessness will hit 13 percent by June.

While transportation and other workers are resisting the effects of the capitalist depression and the austerity policies of the government of Alain Juppé, incipient fascist currents are also gaining strength - a sign of the more acute polarization of society.

On February 9, the ultrarightist National Front (FN) of Jean Marie Le Pen won the municipal council of Vitrolles, a suburb of Marseilles, defeating the incumbent candidate of the Socialist Party (SP) who was also supported by the conservatives. It was the fourth city where the National Front has won municipal elections. All four of these cities are in southern France, in areas with a high proportion of immigrants from northern Africa. Marseilles is also one of the centers of the transit strike.

Transit strikers try to emulate truckers
The public transit workers in France are following the example of the truck drivers who barricaded Francés roads and highways for 12 days last November and by the national railroad workers strike in November-December 1995.

The truckers succeeded in lowering their retirement age from 60 to 55 after 25 years on the road. The railroad workers beat back a government effort to raise their retirement age to 60 years. As a result, train conductors still retire at 50 years and other rail workers at age 55.

The striking transit workers are employed by a large number of small municipal transit companies. Workers in at least 60 major cities have taken part in the strikes.

Bus and metro workers in Paris are not involved in the strike. They have the same status as the rail workers and have kept their retirement age at 55.

The action began following the truckers victory in November, when bus and trolley workers walked off the job in a number of local strikes in Toulouse, Marseilles, and other cities demanding retirement at age 55 "like the truckers." A national day of action called by the unions for January 24 was overwhelmingly supported by workers, as city after city reported virtually no bus transportation for the day.

Four days later, the Union of Public Transportation (UTP), an employer's association which represents the bosses of 160 local transport systems, offered to reduce the workweek to 35 hours of work for 37 hours of pay.

In addition, the bosses demanded the right to calculate the 35 hours as a yearly average, going beyond a seven-hour workday on some days and having short work on other days. This would mean workers could be called in to work, made to stay late or sent home early at the bosses' behest. It would lessen the pressure on the employers to hire new workers to make up for the work time lost by reducing the work week.

The offer was rejected by the General Labor Confederation (CGT) and Force Ouvriere (FO) or Workers Force, the major union federations among transit workers. Workers in Toulouse went on strike to ensure that the maximum work day would not surpass seven hours.

The CGT and FO then called for a second national day of action for February 6. A third union, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), whose leadership supports the social democratic Socialist Party, refused to support the action.

The second day of action was as large as the first. The next day, workers in 12 major cities, including Marseilles, Toulouse, Toulon, and Nice in the south of France and Lille in the north decided not to go back to work. Two more national unions announced they would join the strike the following February 10. What began as a series of one-day actions has now developed to an all-out strike for a shorter work week.

An attempt by store owners in Toulouse to build an anti- strike march drew only 200 demonstrators. The broad support for the transit walkout reflects a growing sentiment among many workers that it is necessary to reduce work time in order to bring down the high unemployment rate.

Paris regrets previous concessions
The government is beginning to have regrets about having granted the 55 year retirement demand during the truckers strike. French President Jacques Chirac has twice made national television addresses to explain that the country cannot afford to grant early retirement at age 55 to everyone.

Former premier Edouard Balladur announced that "it will be necessary to raise the retirement age." Another former minister, Raymond Barre, publicly urged the government not to give in to any further demands to lower the retirement age or reduce the workweek.

Lionel Jospin, first secretary of the Socialist Party, has also joined the efforts to reduce workers enthusiasm for a shorter workweek. Jospin may become the next premier if the SP wins the legislative elections scheduled for early next year. He opposes retirement at age 55 except in special cases and announced that the 35-hour work week, formally part of the SP program, would not be adopted in the early stages of a future SP government.

However, workers' support for early retirement and a shorter work week remains unshaken. Prior to Chirac's attacks on early retirement, a poll conducted by the business radio station BFM showed 61 percent favoring retirement at 55. After Chirac's speech, a poll done for the daily Le Parisien showed 93 percent support for retirement at 55 for workers doing difficult or tiring jobs. While 54 percent were against retirement at 55 for all workers, 40 percent still supported the demand.

The growing mood of labor resistance was reflected in the recent actions by the 3,000 workers at the Credit Foncier de France (CFF) bank. When the government announced the bank's impending closure, the workers occupied the bank's headquarters for over three weeks. For the first six days of the occupation, they kept the bank's governor and its six directors as "uninvited guests" - locked into their offices. Government representatives accused the strikers of holding the bank's management as "hostages." The government finally agreed to find a solution that would keep the bank functioning.

Since then, striking workers have detained their bosses in six other actions including the director of a textile mill, the director and four managers of a sugar refinery, and the directors of two different hospitals.

National Front gains wider hearing
While sections of the working class are responding to the crisis with demands that unite employed and unemployed, the ultraright blames layers of the working class, particularly immigrants, for the high levels of unemployment and other social ills. These views are gaining a wider hearing.

That's what the victory of the National Front in the municipal by-elections in Vitrolles, a town with 39,000 inhabitants, indicated. The National Front candidate Catherine Mégret won 52.5 percent of the vote in a runoff election against Socialist Party incumbent mayor Jean- Jacques Anglade, who is under investigation for corruption.

The new mayor is the wife of FN deputy leader Bruno Mégret, who was banned from running because he exceeded the spending limit before the last poll in 1985. "This is the importance of Vitrolles," Bruno Mégret told the British daily Independent after the first round of the elections there. "We will have taken on, for the first time, the combined forces of all the other political parties in France, and beaten them. It is a sign that the dike is beginning to crack."

This suburb of Marseilles is a run-down working-class district where the now ruling conservatives have never had much support. The conservative candidate, who won 16 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting, urged his followers to vote their conscience on the second round while expressing his "absolute opposition to the FN's views."

"It is not because the Vitrolles are fascists," Marius Comti, 41, who works in a local coal mine, told the Independent in an interview about the impending victory of the National Front. The miner, who opposed the ultrarightists, continued, "It is because they are angry and they have no work and feel themselves abandoned. They have no love for the Front candidate. How can you like someone who shakes hands without taking off her white gloves?"  
 
 
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