Following the successful stoppage, workers in Marseille voted to renew their action--initially planned for only one day--as an unlimited strike. The action followed by two months a mobilization by 300,000 workers across France to oppose proposals by the national employers' federation, since shelved, to raise the national retirement age from its present level of 60 years to age 65.

The action came a week after elections for mayors took place in cities and towns throughout the country--elections that registered an overall decline in popular support for the Socialist Party–led ruling coalition.

Other workers have organized strikes and demonstrations to raise their demands. Several days after the ballot, 55,000 public sector workers mobilized to back their demand for a wage raise. The work stoppage was joined by from 25 percent to 40 percent of all teachers, 10 percent of postal workers, and 12 percent of all telephone workers. Last year, the government limited wages for the 5.4 million public workers to a 0.5 percent increase.

Meanwhile, some 7,000 wine growers from southern France demonstrated in Nîmes March 21 to demand immediate government aid to farmers who risk losing their farms as a result of the collapse of the market for cheap table wine. It was their third such demonstration in seven months.  
 
Setbacks for governing coalition
The March 18 municipal elections saw historic victories for the governing coalition in Paris and Lyon, the country's first and third largest cities. Elsewhere, though, the coalition suffered a series of setbacks at the hands of the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its electoral partner, the Union for French Democracy (UDF). The national government, elected in 1997, is a coalition known as the Plural Left, made up of the Socialist Party (SP), French Communist Party, the Green Party, and the Left Radicals.

In Paris and Lyon, millions of workers' votes carried the SP candidates to victory in the face of a weaker challenge by the RPR and its allies. Overall, however, the elections were notable for the number of workers who did not vote, registering their dissatisfaction with a government whose principal parties are traditionally based in the unions. The abstention rate of 38.7 percent in large cities was the largest on record for a municipal election.

On the other hand, significant numbers of workers voted for several smaller centrist parties, particularly Lutte Ouvrière and the Revolutionary Communist League, both of which averaged more than 5 percent of the vote in those towns where they were on the ballot.

Six government ministers who were candidates for mayor in the local elections were defeated. Plural Left administrations in 39 towns and cities went down to defeat.

Like the Socialist Party, the Communist Party suffered a number of setbacks in the provinces, losing its governing position in 12 cities. Other partners in the governing coalition have also lost some credibility. The leaders of the Green Party, which has campaigned as a voice for environmental concerns, have aroused the ire of working farmers by blaming farmers for environmental problems, and by leading the way in levying a special "pollution tax" on the agricultural sector.

Workers had high hopes in the Plural Left government when it was elected in 1997 in the wake of mass strikes and demonstrations that defeated efforts to raise the retirement age of public sector workers, adopt a subminimum wage for young people, and undermine the public health-care system.

In office the administration of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has attempted to slash public spending on health care, and to impose other cutbacks that have proved deeply unpopular among working people. The government has backtracked on some of its attacks in the face of protests and industrial action, but has not retreated from its overall anti-working class course.

Its much-heralded legislation to introduce a 35-hour workweek, for example, has in practice benefited the employers, who often use its "flexible" work provisions to move hours from one part of the year to another, avoiding the need to pay overtime. Bosses also frequently deduct paid lunch and coffee breaks from "real" work time, thus reducing the legal workweek without reducing the actual amount of time worked.

"The government was elected to do something for the workers," commented Roger Pouvreau to the Militant, in a commonly voiced opinion. In his 28 years as an auto worker at Renault, Pouvreau has seen a drop in real wages and a decline in conditions on the job. "Workers are disappointed and discouraged with the government," he said. "Many abstained in the elections. The government did not honor its election promises to give more power to workers, to raise living standards, and lower unemployment."  
 
Conservative parties suffer divisions
The conservative parties face their own problems in mounting a challenge to the government, including in general elections planned for next year. Their defeat in Paris and Lyon, where they have ruled for decades, point to important divisions among these forces. In both cities breakaway candidates from the RPR scored heavily.

Differences have broken out over how closely to ally these parties with the National Front and other similar organizations and figures, who seek to win a following through anti-immigrant demagogy and other rightist planks.

The National Front did not win any new seats in this election. Despite a damaging split in its ranks in January 1999, however, the rightist formation succeeded in having three of the four National Front mayors who were elected in the previous 1995 municipal elections reelected this time, two of them in Orange and Marignane, with much larger votes than six years ago.

The National Republican Movement, which split from the National Front in 1999, was narrowly reelected in Vitrolles.  
 
 
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