We publish here an interview with Greg Oxley, editor of the French Marxist newspaper La Riposte, about the current industrial unrest in France and its political significance.
What is happening today in France?
We currently have a big strike movement in which rail workers are mainly involved. The strike broke out with the purpose of defending public services: of transportation, benefits and the salaries of the workers themselves. It is a very important movement.
President Macron is using the same strategy in France that Margaret Thatcher used in the 1980s to break the miners’ strike in Britain. This has opened up a period of attacks on the entire working class and on other layers of society. In a similar way to the British miners, if the French rail strike is defeated, it will open up a period of attacks against the entire French working class.
How do you think the strike is progressing?
It’s hard to really say it. It is a kind of staggered stoppage with intermittency of two to five days-worth of strikes. It is having a great effect on the entire railway sector and all the rail links, but it obviously has much less impact than if it had been an all-out rail strike. There is a great deal of difficulty maintaining this kind of strike and it points to a long period of struggle.
If this series of staggered stoppages does not have the desired effect, in my opinion tactic should be replaced by a more effective one, which would mean an all-out strike and an appeal to other workers to support them. Although I’m not sure how this fight will end, I can say that Macron can not afford to give up because all of his prestige and credibility would collapse if he did. On the other hand the rail workers cannot afford to give up either.
What about the student movement?
In the universities, there has began a fight against a series of reforms by which Macron is trying to restrict university access to new students. This would reduce the number of under-graduates and particularly prevent the entry of young people from a working-class background.
In this important struggle several universities have been occupied and we have even had violent confrontations in the streets between students and the police, who have been very brutal in their desire to crush this fight.
What about the stability of the Macron government?
The Macron government seems very stable at the moment. It has a solid majority in the parliament and that systematically drives through all the measures coming down from the presidency. Macron’s policy is right-wing despite of denying, in his presidential campaign that he had any ‘left or right’ character. His policies are openly pro-capitalist and his antipathy to reforms in favour of the working class are very clear. He has made tax concessions to the rich and the super-rich. Simultaneously, he has opened a front against pensions, the education system, public services and railways. This government has embarked on a radical policy of counter-reforms.
What reaction do you think these attacks will create within the workers’ movement in the future?
I think it will foment upheaval, because Macron’s policy is a continuation of that of Sarkozy and Hollande. There is no doubt that even if the workers’ movement does not succeed in the immediate period ahead, the government will face new struggles because the working class will understand that if they do not fight they can lose so much.
To some extent, this is an open question. On the other hand, if the railroad workers are defeated – and I hope this is not the case – there might be a period of disappointment among the workers, followed by a period of calm. But still, in the long term, there will inevitably be more discontent and this rail strike is only one indicator of how things will turn on a larger scale in the future.
June 11, 2018
See commentary by Greg Oxley on YouTube:
