"The really big bosses may try to take advantage of the situation," he added, "but their real profits come from the work of others."

In the aftermath of the massive protests of truck drivers, farmers, fishermen, and taxi drivers that blocked the country's oil refineries to protest rising fuel prices, both opponents and supporters of the action are discussing and trying to draw the lessons from the conflict.

The protests, which nearly brought the country to a standstill, were mostly composed of small, independent producers. They also included truck owners who have two or three trucks and had hired drivers working for them. The action had massive support from wage workers throughout the country. One journalist called the protests "the 1995 of the independents," which is a reference to the strike wave five years ago led by the railroad workers to defend the public health-care system.

The last French oil refineries finally reopened September 10. Since then, a similar movement has spread to Britain, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and other European countries.

French finance minister Laurent Fabius has estimated the cost to the government of the agreements signed with truckers and farmers to be more than 3 billion francs. (1 franc = US 13 cents). Other agreements have been signed with fishermen and taxi drivers.

The government has announced it is considering additional measures to limit fuel price increases and reduce fuel taxes for the general public, not just for independents and small businessmen. They are also considering a supplementary tax on oil company profits.

Farmers have won a 30 percent reduction, worth 0.16 francs per liter, on one of the fuel taxes, the TIPP, retroactive to January 1. The farmers had demanded a 0.52 franc reduction. The Agriculture Ministry announced further measures reducing taxes for farmers by a total of some 500 million francs.

Truck drivers will receive a rebate on the TIPP of 0.35 francs per liter this year and 0.25 francs next year. This measure applies to big fleet owners as well as to independent owner operators and should average 17,500 francs per truck.

The taxi drivers demand for a reduction of fuel taxes was refused. The government authorized a 4.5 percent fare hike.

In spite of massive workers support--opinion polls showed 88 percent in favor of the strikers--the major trade unions denounced the action. Making an amalgam between the independents and the big truck fleet owners, a declaration by the Confederation Executive Committee of the CGT, which was distributed in many factories, denounced the movement as the work of "bosses pressure groups...in the service of interests which are totally foreign to those of wage earners.... The interests of wage earners are not those of the transportation bosses, nor those of the oil companies." The CGT leadership supports the French Communist Party, which is part of the government of Social Party Premier Lionel Jospin.

Nicole Notat, head of the CFDT, a union with ties to the Socialist Party, found the situation "incredible." Jospin's first task was, she said, "to get people back to work and the economy and the country functioning normally."

Inevitably, coffee break discussion in factories throughout the country has turned around the oil refinery blockades. The Renault plant in the Paris suburb of Choisy-le-roi is no exception.

Many workers were impressed by the social force shown by the truckers and farmers--the "independents." When asked what would happen if such actions could be joined with a strike wave like that of railroad and other workers that brought the country to a halt in 1995, the workers answered right away: "You'd have the country in the palm of your hand," and "It would be like the 1968 general strike." A worker said, "You could dictate any solution you wanted for fuel prices," and another answered, "Fuel prices? You could dictate what kind of government we have." The laughter slowly died off, replaced by a long and thoughtful silence.

The recent conflict has deepened divisions in an already weak Jospin government. Earlier in the year, Jospin was forced to retreat when faced with mass protests, first of hospital workers and then of teachers protesting the government's draconian budget cutbacks in health care and education.

Unable to push through his austerity measures, the Education Minister resigned last spring. The Labor and Health Minister has announced she will resign. The Interior Minister resigned in August, disagreeing with negotiations between the government and Corsican nationalists concerning the possibility of granting the island some limited degree of autonomy. And the Environment Minister has threatened to resign in protest of the concessions won by the truck drivers. She says that taxes on diesel fuel are a necessary measure to discourage pollution.

Jospin's new retreat has provoked sharp criticism from Wim Duisenberg, head of the European Central Bank.

For the first time since the European currency, the euro, was launched two years ago, Duisenberg publicly criticized the fiscal policies of the government of a member country. He lashed out at those governments "which give the false impression that the costs of rising oil prices can be avoided by loosening up tight budgetary policies." He said he was worried that Paris's tax concessions to fishermen, truckers, and farmers "would become a tendency for the whole euro zone."

The decline in the euro has accelerated during the conflict as capitalists continued to shift investment from Europe to the United States, with the euro dropping below 86 cents to the dollar. When it was launched on Jan. 1, 1999, the currency stood at $1.18. The European Central Bank was forced September 14 for the first time to intervene in international money markets to support the euro by selling off parts of its hoarded dollar reserves.