Bus and subway workers in Paris employed by the RATP, a nationalized company, did not strike, as they have retirement parity with the SNCF workers. The mass transit bosses have said it is "out of the question" to lower the retirement age in the private sector. The coalition of five transportation unions has announced two more one-day strikes for May.

As the combative transit workers continue their struggle, workers' attention has been increasingly focused on the growing number of layoffs and plant closures by big business.

More than 1,000 workers demonstrated outside the headquarters of Moulinex-Brandt April 25 against the company's decision to close three of its factories in France, as well as plants in Ireland, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. In addition, the workforce in another factory in Brazil and one in Poland is to be slashed. Some 4,000 workers will lose their jobs, 1,500 of them in France.

Moulinex-Brandt, which was formed as the result of a French-Italian merger in December, makes household appliances. The Moulinex management claims that their problems stem from "Asian competition." In response, officials of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the majority union at Moulinex, announced they are considering a reactionary "intelligent boycott" of household appliances sold under European brand names but produced in Asia or South America.

The action by workers at Moulinex was joined by a large delegation of union members from the LU factories owned by Gervais-Danone. Danone, the largest food distributor in France, has announced the closure of two LU cookie factories in France plus layoffs in a number of other countries. Some 1,700 Danone workers will lose their jobs in Europe, 570 of them in France. An April 21 demonstration of more than 20,000 in Calais, called by the French Communist Party, protested the Danone plant closures, and called for a law to stop layoffs and a boycott of Danone products.

One thousand workers from Air Littoral, Air Liberté, and AOM demonstrated at Orly airport April 24 against the threatened bankruptcy and closure of the three airlines. Some 7,500 workers risk losing their jobs. The same day, workers from the three airlines blocked the runways at Nice airport. Thirty-eight flights were canceled. One hundred workers also occupied the runways at Montpellier airport for an hour.

Under pressure from the workers' actions, Swissair, the principal stock owner in the group, agreed to put up 500 million francs (US$70 million) to cover the airlines' losses over the next two months while they try to sell the three companies. Air France has announced that they will hire some of the workers.

Contingents of workers from the three airlines, along with unionists from the threatened Danone plants, led off the May Day demonstration of 20,000 workers here.

The department store chain Marks & Spencer, based in Britain, has announced the closure of 38 stores on the European continent, 18 of them in France. The firings at Marks & Spencer and at Danone have particularly outraged workers throughout the country as both companies have declared large profits. The 1,700 Marks & Spencer workers in France have also organized demonstrations, often together with the Danone workers.

Some 250 workers at the Pechiney magnesium factory in Marignac occupied the plant for 24 hours when Pechiney announced its closure. On May 3 they blocked a major highway near the factory for several hours and the next day shopkeepers throughout the town showed their support by closing up shop for the day.

Auto parts and telecommunications companies have also announced plant closings. Philips, Motorola, and Ericsson all plan to dismiss thousands of workers.  
 
Economic slowdown
The layoffs are the latest sign of the gathering storm clouds on Europe's economic horizon. With the Japanese economy mired in an economic downturn and a declining rate of growth in the U.S. economy, a slowdown is underway here as well. France's economy has registered between 3 percent and 3.5 percent growth since 1998 and its high unemployment rate, which peaked at 12.6 percent in 1997, has been going down ever since, reaching 8.7 percent in March. But the new wave of layoffs has led some capitalists to demand action from the European Central Bank to limit the effects in Europe of the economic problems in Japan and the United States.

European Central Bank president Wim Duisenburg has so far refused calls by U.S. treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and IMF economist Michael Mussa to lower interest rates as a stimulus to economic growth, claiming that the U.S. slowdown will not affect the European economies. "It would be a paradox," a French representative told the recent G-7 meeting in Washington, "if the zone with 1 percent growth [the United States] told the zone with 2.5 percent growth [Europe] how things should be done."

Nevertheless, Europe is not immune from the slowdown in other capitalist economies. The IMF dropped its 2001 projection for European growth from 3.4 to 2.4 percent and for growth in France from 3.5 to 2.6 percent. The French government's National Institute of Economic Studies and Statistics (INSEE) index of industrialists' production perspectives dropped 12 points in April after going up 5 points in March and 15 points in February. The IMF's semiannual perspectives report published April 26 warned that if the U.S. slowdown continued it could result in a "synchronized weakening" of all the world capitalist economies.  
 
Demands to limit layoffs
In the recent wave of strikes and demonstrations here, workers have raised demands that the government take effective action to limit layoffs and plant closures. Among demands that have been widely discussed is enactment of laws to forbid layoffs by profitable companies and a proposal by the French Communist Party to give unions the right to oppose layoffs and refer them for decision to a labor court. The government has refused both proposals.

"We can not forbid layoffs," Socialist Party spokesperson Vincent Peillon said in response to these demands. "There is no other realistic proposition."

Labor Minister Elisabeth Guigou has proposed a law that doubles the minimum indemnity fired workers receive and reinforces job-training measures. "These measures won't change anything for us," answered a shop steward at Marks & Spencer.

French capitalists are increasingly uneasy about the deepening workers' struggles. In a March 26 editorial entitled "Social combativity," the financial daily Les Echos said that there are "many indications that would make us ask if there is not a reawakening of social combativity. This is clearest in the private sector, up to now well known for being relatively calm."

Private sector workers, such as coal miners, steel, auto, textile, and shipyard workers, suffered a series of defeats in the 1980s from which they have not yet fully recovered. Les Echos complained about the "growing solidarity between strikers and all other workers," and pointed to the 80 percent support by all wage earners for recent strikes by hospital workers and truck drivers.

Particularly worrying was the result of a public opinion poll that showed that 66 percent of workers say they are ready to go on strike and 36 percent to occupy their workplace if their interests are threatened, up by 11 percent from 1996.

Nat London works at a Renault auto plant in Choisy-le-roi and is a member of the General Confederation of Labor.  
 
 
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