3650. Can the Left Upset Victory in France Turn the Tide?

By Marc Steiner, The Real News Network, July 9, 2024

Supporters of the Popular Front Coalition celebrate in Paris

The twists and turns of France’s recent election have ended with a surprise majority for the New Popular Front, a hastily cobbled together left coalition running the gamut from the Communists to the Greens. The NFP’s unexpected triumph turned the early success of the far-right National Rally in the first round of the election on its head. But the right in France is far from defeated, and whether the NFP can hold its ground, or expand its influence from here, remains to be seen. Axel Persson, general secretary of the CGT Railway Workers Union in Trappes, joins The Marc Steiner Show for a postmortem of the election, the challenges that remain ahead for the French left, and what lessons can be learned by observers from around the world.

TRANSCRIPT

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on the Real News. It’s great to have you all with us again. As we all know, France just went to the polls, but first let me tell you, I’m home a bit under the weather. We have to get this program out given what just happened in France. Bear with me if the sound quality is not as great as we always have it. But it’s an important conversation and nobody thought this was going to happen. Everybody thought Le Pen and the right would win this election.

The right would take over France, but the people had a different idea. And this election in France, the left coalition made up the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Ecologists or the Greens, created something like a 1930s Popular Front that they did then to combat Nazism and the right, demand worker rights in during the depression. Now a new Popular Front has taken over and taken up that mantle and all the disparate groups in the left in France and together to stop the right wing from taking power. And this left wing coalition is there. We’ll see what happens in the future. And we are joined now by Axel Persson who is a train driver in France, General Secretary of the CGT Railroad Workers Union in Montreuil, in a suburb of Paris. And Axel, excuse me, good to have you with us.

Axel Persson:

Thank you. Happy to be with you.

Marc Steiner:

And you’re joining us from Sweden.

Axel Persson:

I’m actually joining from Sweden because I’m actually on holidays for 11 coming days. I left this morning for Sweden.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome. Glad you could join us.

Axel Persson:

Thank you.

Marc Steiner:

This really was in many ways, absolutely unprecedented. People did not think this was going to happen. Talk a bit about what you think happened and how and why the left went beyond what people expected to happen.

Axel Persson:

The very name Popular Front that was used to define this broad alliance between the Social Democrats, the Communist Party, the Green Party, and also one of the biggest parties on the left nowadays that is called [foreign language 00:02:03] in French, which would translate into the Unbounded Rebellious France, came together of course using this very politically charged name of Popular Front because it refers to a very specific period in French history in the 1930s and of course different situations but similar dynamics where the far right was on the rise and also on the verge of taking power. They decided to come together, unite in order to prevent them from seizing state power at least through the means of election. It was a direct reference to that period of history in order to mark as heavily as possible in the collective conscience that this is what was at stake here right now.

 And of course it worked to some extent. And I must add also that this is not only a coalition of political parties, it’s also a coalition that includes, for example, trade unions such as mine, the CGT, the General Confederation Labor, which is the oldest trade union in France. And also groups like anti-fascist groups which joined the front of feminist organizations, anti-racist organizations and different movements such as, for example, Jewish, anti-Zionist organizations that joined the Popular Front in order to unite on a platform that of course made many compromises on various issues. But that defined a minimal frame into which one could form an agreement in order to prevent and go to the polls and prevent the far right from seizing power, which worked, at least for now. And I’m saying this at least for now, because even though the Popular Front managed to prevent the far right from gaining the most seats in parliament and the Popular Front is the coalition that has the most seats in parliament, it neither has its own majority.

And it cannot hide the fact that despite this, the far right has grown in French society and this election, even though they didn’t gain as much seats as they hoped for, does confirm that they’re on an upwards trend and that their ideas have been deeply rooted in French society, which means that unless we manage to switch the tide and turn it backwards, it’s just a matter of time because they managed to seize power. This is an alert, it worked this time. The Popular Front tactic worked this time, but it also gives us high responsibilities in order to seize this opportunity where we managed to prevent them from seizing power to transform it into hope. Because in the end, just preventing them from seizing power is not a political program in itself that could satisfy the large swath of the working class and the population in general.

What we need to do now is take the offensive back, gain the ground we’ve lost, gain back the ground we’ve lost and go on the offensive. And us as a trade union, what we are saying now is that the only issue at hand for us is to organize massively and use the weapons of our collective class, which are strikes, insurrections, demonstrations, because those are the only way into which we’ll be able to transform the society, not institutional politics, even though we do not underestimate importance of elections. But in the end, that is not what is going to change radically the lives of the people who are demanding this desperate change in order to live in a better world to put things simply. That is our task at hand, which is actually the most difficult part. It’s not the elections that were the most difficult, it’s actually what’s coming now.

Marc Steiner:

Let me just say, Axel you said so much here. Let me see if I can get some of it out and I can see why you’re one of the leaders of the movement. But let’s first of all talk about, one of the things you said was how the right has grown and how they have a powerful base in France, talk about for all of our people listening about the political struggle in France and why the right is so strong and why the surge as it has in the United States, as it has in India, as it has in lots of places, but what’s the French story? Why is there such a surge on the right?

Axel Persson:

There’s many explanations of course. The first one being of course, that the far right is being financed and fueled by very powerful forces in French society. For example, there is a very, very famous, one of the most powerful billionaires in French society who is called Vincent Bollore, who is a CEO of an industrial empire who has for the past decade now methodically bought up massive amount of medias within the written press, television, radios, and is now actually pushing and lobbying for the privatization of the public media in order to be able to privatize them and has managed to push through this campaign and a massive amount of media campaigning, pushing basically far right theories, shifting the blame that working people can lay on the issues that facing, such as housing crisis, low wages, layoffs in factories, even in security. Everything, everything, everything, literally, there’s no exception to it, is being linked to issues such as immigration, ethnicity or sometimes even religion.

And that is a massively coordinated campaign that is being fund and financed by very powerful forces in French society who have a right wing agenda. But the fact also that it has succeeded because that is not the only factor is also because of the weakness actually of the organized left, even though it’s stronger than in other countries, the fact that for example, the Social Democratic Party, even the Communist Party have been in power most notably in the eighties and nineties and even actually in 2012, have repeatedly failed and disappointed vast sections of the working class when they were in power implementing policies that were against the working classes or even sometimes pushing racist policies.

I’m thinking particularly about the Social Democratic Party, which has led to a massive disillusion in politics, which has given way to this far right that much like in the US actually where we have this quite absurd situation where billionaires, because it’s literally billionaires like Trump for example, as you have in the US who are billionaires from the system, the establishment, and who managed to portray themselves as the anti-system candidates, which is quite absurd when you see where they’re coming from and how they’re being funded.

But that is basically the dynamics into which… And they’re managing to tap into the sentiment a large portion of the society here through that. And one of the things also another pillar by that is that we used to have in France the biggest, the strongest communist party in the entire industrial world, which meant that it was not only strong electorally, it was also strong in society, in the grassroots, it controlled large neighborhoods, it controlled cities. And within these cities they had organized a complete counter society by controlling unions, controlling sport clubs, controlling all these associations that would help people with housing issues, even homework, everyday problems.

And as this Communist Party participated in governments that disappointed large section of the class, this party progressively started its downhill phase and not disappeared, but got very, very weakened. And this whole counter society that managed to basically fight this narrative in the working class neighborhoods has been weakened a lot, which has given a leeway to the far right that has managed to tap in into those communities that used to be organized by the communist movement and are now having a much easier time to basically dive into the collective psyche of the workers than that we had before.

Marc Steiner:

Just from your responses to the questions I ask, I can see we could spend days here, we don’t have days to spend, but I would like to probe that a little bit more deeply because one of the things I thought about in watching what was happening in France in this election is that it is emblematic of the struggle across the globe.

Axel Persson:

Yes.

Marc Steiner:

I’d like to hear your analysis as someone who’s been a union activist, who’s been fighting in the political struggles in France, why you think, what your analysis is about why the left seems to have come apart, has lost power in its way? Even though in France itself, you built this coalition that won the election, or at least you had more votes than anybody else in the election, that’s almost unprecedented since the thirties to be able to put that broad liberal left and left coalition together to stop the right. Tell me, I just want to hear your answer why you think the left is having so much problem and B, what do you think that holds for the future?

Axel Persson:

What it holds for the future is that of course what made basically the left in this particular situation, and not only the political left, even the trade unions and all these associations that took part, that are part of the Popular Front is the weight of history and the conscious and this very strong historical conscience of what happened last time when fascists were in power. That is something that is shared amongst the broad left, despite all our differences because the lessons from the thirties basically were drawn that, we might have a very, very vocal and very severe disagreements, very passionate disagreements amongst us on issues that are very important, such as, for example, Palestine is an issue that are currently going now, the war in Ukraine, even the pension reform on matters of internal French politics on all issues. But in the end of the day, we know that the fascists, they don’t care about our difference.

They will basically smash all of us. They will put us in prison, they will attack us all. They didn’t actually, the groups, they don’t discriminate in between us, they attack us all widely. We don’t have a chance, we don’t have any other choice but to unite in order to fight for survival. And that is something that is very ingrained in the political conscious. But the reason why also we are in a weaker position that when we were before though, is the fact that this collective counter society, this collective political ideal, that another society is actually within reach, that we can build it, that we can transform through collective radical struggles, has been abandoned by many of the political leadership of the historical left who has traded it for institutional politics, which has left many disappointed. And that is not only the case in France, it has been the case in the UK, it has been the case in the US, it has been the case in many, many parts of the world.

And this whole ideal that we can change the world to make it a better place by overthrowing the current system is something that is not being taught or nothing being vaculated in our structures and our unions and our political parties anymore. It is nowadays being done again, which is giving more hope. But it is something that is vital because the far right prospers on the despair of the working people. And that is something we need to do is be able to give a perspective and a hope that we can actually change this world.

Marc Steiner:

As a union man helping to run the union and as a political activist, how do you see that happening? Right now we don’t know what’s going to happen inside the parliament. It could be just an archic madness happening inside of the parliament in France because nobody has a majority.

Axel Persson:

Exactly.

Marc Steiner:

That’s A. Let me stop here, let me hit that. What do you think is going to happen? Then I’ll come back to the question about organizing for the future. What do you think is going to happen in the coming weeks and months given the absolute divide and split in France as shown by this election?

Axel Persson:

The first maneuvers the establishment is going to make is going to try to divide the Popular Front amongst its more reformist elements and it’s more radical elements. They’re going to try, for example, what they call the central block, which is basically the critical block formed around President Emmanuel Macron’s block basically are going to try, for example, to convince parts of the Popular Front, such as the Social Democrats or the Greens, to join their block in a coalition that would basically implement liberal policies with him. And in exchange of course for things like ministries or different positions within the state and machine, I’m not sure that’s going to work because the pressure is so high on the Popular Front within the working class and within the popular neighborhoods within our communities that anybody who leaves the Popular Front in exchange for this are going to get basically a very violent backlash from it.

And what we are saying as union members is that there is no hope to gain from institutional politics, what has always worked in France, but all across the countries in the world, in general world, there’s a working class is only, and there’s only one thing that works, it’s when we go on strike, it’s when we go on general strikes. It’s when we organize a corrective upheaval of our forces. And we’ve proved it in the past, we proved it. And I’m not talking about the past that happened like 150 years ago. I’m talking about something that happened a few months ago. For example, in very concrete example in my industry last year we won a general strike with all other workers to defend our pension issues. We refused to go back to work. We continued it even this year and we won an agreement just a few months ago that basically secured my right solving, my right, to retire at 53 years old at full pension.

And that is possible, that was made possible, not because we voted right, it wasn’t made possible because we fought, organized, and made them cave in and made them bite the dust and not the other way around. What we are saying is that as workers, the only issue forward is not to trust in what’s going to happen in the institution, it’s what we’re going to do as workers organizing the workplace and using the most important weapon we have is to strike because that’s how you paralyze the economy. That’s how you force them to cave into your demands.

And it also demonstrates that without our labor, they can’t do anything. They can’t produce the profits they’re living on, they can produce their dividends and it just comes to prove that they’re the one needing us. We’re not the one needing them. And this is a very, very important political point that we need to make and that we’re basically hammering through now and even within the institutions, in order to force institutions to bow down to our demands, we have to force them through our collective struggles. This is the only line we’re pulling in all the workplaces now is that prepare for a strike, prepare for the general struggles now.

Marc Steiner:

How do you see then that playing out in the coming months? You said this, you have this broad coalition and there are some differences obviously inside these liberal left coalition that was built to stop the neo-fascist from taking power. How do you see all that, given what you just described as well, how do you see that playing out? What do you think will happen over the next few months?

Axel Persson:

There’s two options. If there is no massive mobilization within the popular neighborhoods, within the workplaces, within the unions, it’ll end up, unfortunately, as it will always end up, when we don’t force them to go into our demands, it’ll end up in tactical alliances within different parties into the institutions, which will just lead to further disillusionment and disappointment. That is what will happen. But on the other hand, what may happen is that if this gives only a regained, a renewed sense of hope and people take to the streets, take to the fight basically in all the places in society, whether it be the universities, the workplaces, the neighborhoods, everywhere basically, even the high schools, if people start mobilizing mastery through demonstrations, occupations, and strikes, which we have proved we can do in a very recent future, then things might change for real.

And this is also why the name Popular Front is important because of course in the history in France, the name Popular Front refers to the government that was formed in 1936 and is associated in French social and political history with major social advances such as paid holidays, collective agreements, reduced working hours, the eight-hour working day, et cetera, et cetera.

And also trade union rights. But what one must not forget is that most of the things that were gained in 1936 were not even on the political platform on which the Popular Front parties on 1936 went to elections with. What happened was that there was a general strike in June 1936 that lasted for months in which major, all the factories in France occupied by the workers. And after one month’s long strike, the employers and the government were then forced to sign an agreement which gave all these advances and social rights, which we benefit still from today. And that’s what we are saying, we are saying, “Yeah, we revived the Popular Front, we revived the coalition, basically the electric coalition, what we need to arrive now is what made it really interesting.” It was a general strike that followed, and this may sound a bit very simplistic, but there is no other way actually, people are saying something else are just lying.

Marc Steiner:

When you have a country like France and like the United States that are so deeply divided among the people, we have an election coming up and people on the left they go, “We despise Biden, we can’t vote for Biden.” But then again, you don’t want the neo-fascist to take over the United States. That would be a disaster for our country and the planet. In France, how do you maintain this coalition and really seize power so it can’t be pushed out?

Axel Persson:

The fact is that we know that for the next year, the president does not dispose of the faculty to dissolve the parliament. We know that for the coming year, basically the parliament is going to stay at least for a year. But the thing is that-

Marc Steiner:

What does that mean? We just had this election in France and you’re saying the president has the power to not allow it to take power, to take their seats, to change. [inaudible 00:19:18].

Axel Persson:

It’s a very peculiar power the French president has is that the French president has the faculty to what they call to dissolve the parliament if for example, is what he just did, for whatever reason, he can decide that the parliament is no longer session and new elections are being held. But he can only do that once a year maximum. He can’t do it like every day either. And what I’m saying also is that in the absence of a majority in parliament, because neither block has a majority, the constitution wasn’t really tailored for such a situation. We don’t know what’s going to happen because it wasn’t tailored for that. And we’re going to find out in the coming weeks what strategy Macron and the other parties are going to have. I can’t really speculate on that because this is quite new basically in French political society.

But what we do know though is that they’re quite intent on not letting the program of the Popular Front being implemented. They’ve been very clear on that. What we’re going to have to do, and I’m always coming back to these fundamentals, is that this coalition was good in the sense that it prevented the far right from getting a majority of the seats in parliament. But it doesn’t mean we have ceased power as workers. When I’m going back to work after my 11 days of holidays, my bosses will still be there. They will still be holding the power over me in the workplaces. The banks will still be owned by the same owners who will still dispose of the same power. And what we are saying to the people and the workers listening to us is that is where the real power lies and that is the power we need to seize.

It’s that power we need to target. I’m not trying to avoid your question. I’m just saying that what we are saying as union now is that the only way to direct our strength and level our collective strength at those who hold the real power is to paralyze and shut down the economy. And I will say this because you mentioned a very divided country. It’s true that it is divided. But what we have shown in the past, for example, last year when we were on the pension strike Macron, and this is part of the reason he actually lost these elections, tried to implement pension reform that will raise the general retirement age to 64 for the general public. And when we went on strike and the society was massively paralyzed by our strikes, and this was a strike that was very massively supported by the working class and the population in general, even their own polls showed that more than nine out of 10 working people supported our strikes, which means that even those who voted for the far right supported it, which means that there is common ground because we have common interests.

And it is only in these periods when we managed to mobilize on our interests, on our objectives, with our methods, that actually the far right disappears from the political scene for a while because that is the only time in society where we actually managed to unite. And actually everybody unites behind our banner, including people who vote for the far right and who are confused. This is why we’re saying this is a path forward. It’s not necessarily only electoral politics. It is to manage to build mobilizations that unite us around common interests. And that is our role as a trade union and that is what we can do. That is why our responsibility is so important because we’re the only force that can actually and manage to do that.

Marc Steiner:

That to me, before we have to go on, I know we have lots to do today. That to me is very fascinating because what you’re saying is you have to organize and keep pushing. You’ve got this huge number of people in the parliament, but the issue is organizing the people which also can bring in the right. And it makes me think about decades back when I was probably closer to your age and organizing, we organized a right wing racist neighborhood in coalition with a black neighborhood to fight for their rights both on the docks and also in terms of housing rights.

Axel Persson:

Exactly.

Marc Steiner:

And you’re saying that that’s the same approach seems you’re taking in your strategic thinking about how you build on this and not allow the right to come back.

Axel Persson:

Exactly. That’s the key to it. Because at the end of the day, even if it’s very difficult to admit because what some of these people are saying when we’re talking about society is very difficult to hear sometimes when we’re discussing it’s very racist series, it’s extremely violent. But at the end of the day, even if they ignore it, and it’s not about being paternalistic or anything or condescending, even if they ignore it, they as workers have the same interest as the other workers, regardless of their skin color, regardless of their gender, regardless of their religion, even if they ignore it, they do have the same interest. And they actually do realize it only in periods where we as unions managed to mobilize the entire French society around our common objectives. And we proven that this is not like an abstract theory. When we go on massive strikes for pension issues, they support us.

And that is actually the moment where they actually join people they theoretically hate when they vote. That’s the only time of the year basically where they actually join and fight with them. And that is in these moments where we can build beyond abstract discussions, we can build concrete common mobilizations and make their consciousness evolve into something more progressive basically. And for example, right now many workers are facing issues such as insufficient wages to meet their needs, their daily needs or housing problems. Some of them will say for example, that the housing problems are due to immigrants taking better housing or that lower wages are due to immigrants doing it for lower wages and whatever. But at the end of the day, when we manage to organize mobilizations for decent housing in the neighborhoods or high wages through strikes, that is a moment where we actually manage to unite them where they can meet or what can discuss.

And that is where I’ve seen personally political consciousness evolve. And that is why we’re insisting and joins what you said yourself about when you organize these type of neighborhoods back in the days, it’s the only moment where actually political consciousness involved when they can actually become allies. But it’s actually the most important task we have at hand is to manage how to unite our class around its class objectives and make the clash consciousness rise again. Basically that is the task at hand because that is what is lacking the most in order to rebuild not only the Popular Front, but rebuild basically a capable organization that are capable to overthrow the society because divided we fall.

Marc Steiner:

That’s wonderful. I almost want to end it there, but one really last quick question, let you go back to the family is that I’m curious in all the work you’ve done as a union leader, organizer, leading strikes, organizing people and helping to build this Popular Front that really stopped the right wing onslaught for now, for this moment, where do you think it goes from here? Where do you think the next couple of months, which will be very critical, will take it?

Axel Persson:

It’s going to be very critical because if we fail, basically what happened now needs to be translated into tangible results for working people in the coming period. I’m not saying the coming day or the coming weeks, but it needs to be translated into tangible results for the working class. Because if it doesn’t, this will just mean that the far right will be able to, even if there was a bit delayed, but will only delay the ascension to power because they will be able to tap into that sentiment that, “All of these politicians, all of these forces are rotten and in the end of the day they betray us and they don’t provide and they don’t live up to the promises they made.”

And basically people will resort to forces that actually promise to crush us because that is what they’re doing. The far right, the promise is not only to crushes, of course the most known part is crushing immigrants or just discriminating against blacks or LGBTs, you name it, they do it, but they also, and it’s something they less publicize, is also about how they promise to cross the trade unions in France, which is one of the pillars of fascism.

And what we need to go from here is to make sure that our mobilization, that we manage to force the Popular Front to stay true to its program and also that our mobilization manages to prevent all the other parties from stopping the program from being implemented. That’s why I’m always coming back to the basics. Back to the basics. The only social force that can save the working class is the working class itself. There is no supreme savior, it is only us, through our mobilization that can force this to happen because we are the one who make all the cogs of societies, all the wheels of societies turn. Without us, nothing works. There will be no train, there will be no fuel, there will be no electricity if we decide to withdraw labor. We hold the power, we just need to gain the conscious that we have it and that we need to use this in order to crush them, in order to prevent them from crushing us.

This will need a broad alliance from anti-racist organizations, trade unions, feminist organization, anti-colonialist organizations such as those that are involved in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine because we all share the same and common enemy, which is the capitalist state. And if we managed to unite in all our fights in order to deal a common blow at our common enemies, that is how we will rebuild the class consciousness and build a potent force that is capable of bringing down the society and not only bringing it down, but heralding a new hope for millions of people who are just craving for something to hope for.

Marc Steiner:

Axel Persson, I want to thank you so much for taking the time today on your break on holiday in Sweden. This has been a really interesting conversation. I look forward to having more conversations as we cover what’s happening in France because I think it’s emblematic and a story for all the people struggling for equitable society across us the globe need to hear, especially here in the United States where I live. Again, Axel, thank you for your work, thanks for your time and we’ll be staying in touch.

Axel Persson:

Thank you very much.

Marc Steiner:

Once again, thank you to Axel Persson for joining us today. And thanks to Cameron Granadino for running the program and our audio editor, Alina Nelah and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to the Axel Persson for joining us today, and we’ll be bringing you more about France and the struggle against the right and the fight for the future and bring more people, bring Axel back and other folks who are in the midst of that struggle that have a lot to say to us about the future. For the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved and keep listening.

3649. Leon Trotsky: The Decisive Hour in France

By Leon Trotsky, Marxism.org, December 14, 1938

The French protesters at barridas, 1934. 

Each day, whether we wish it or not, we convince ourselves anew that the earth continues to revolve upon its axis. Likewise, the laws of the class struggle act independently of the fact that we recognize them or not. They continue to operate despite the politics of the Popular Front. The class struggle makes the Popular Front its instrument. After the experience of Czechoslovakia it is now the turn of France: the most hidebound and the most backward have a new occasion to teach themselves.

The Popular Front is a coalition of parties. Every coalition, that is, every durable political alliance, has by necessity as its program of action the program of the more moderate of the coalesced parties. The French Popular Front has signified, since its debut, that the Socialists and Communists placed their political activity under the control of the Radicals. The French Radicals represent the left flank of the imperialist bourgeoisie. On the banner of the Radical party are inscribed “patriotism” and “democracy.” Patriotism signifies defense of the colonial empire of France; “democracy” signifies nothing real, but serves solely to enchain the petty bourgeois classes to the chariot of imperialism. It is precisely because the Radicals unite plundering imperialism with verbal democratism that more than any other party they are constrained to lie and to betray the masses.

One can say without exaggeration that the party of Herriot-Daladier is the most corrupt of all the French parties, representing a sort of culture for careerists, venal individuals, stock manipulators of the Bourse, and in general adventurers of all kinds. Since the parties of the Popular Front could not reach beyond the program of the Radicals, this signified in reality the submission of the workers and the peasants to the imperialist program of the most corrupt wing of the bourgeoisie.

In order to justify the politics of the Popular Front they invoked the necessity for an alliance between the proletariat and the petty- bourgeoisie. It is impossible to imagine a more scurrilous lie! The Radical party expresses the interests of the big bourgeoisie, and not of the petty. By its very essence it represents the political machinery of the exploitation of the petty bourgeoisie by imperialism. The alliance with the Radical party is, consequently, an alliance not with the petty bourgeoisie, but with their exploiters. To realize a genuine alliance between the workers and the peasants is not possible except by teaching the petty bourgeoisie how to emancipate themselves from the Radical party, how to cast off once and for all its yoke from their necks. Meanwhile the Popular Front acts in a directly opposite manner; entering into this “front,” Socialists and Communists take upon themselves the responsibility for the Radical party and thus help it in this way to exploit and to betray the masses.

In 1936, Socialists, Communists, and Anarcho-syndicalists aided the Radical party in slowing down, and in crumbling the powerful revolutionary movement. Big capital has succeeded during the last two years and a half in recovering a little from its fright. The Popular Front, having fufilled its role as brake, now represents nothing more for the bourgeoisie than a useless hindrance. French imperialism has also changed its international orientation. The alliance with the U.S.S.R. was recognized as of little value and of great risk – the accord with Germany, necessary. The Radicals received from finance capital this order: break with your allies, the Socialists and the Communists. As always, they carried out the order without hesitation.

The absence of opposition among the Radicals at the time of the change in course demonstrated once more that this party is imperialist in essence and “democratic” in words only. The Radical government, rejecting all the lessons of the Comintern on the “united front of the democracies,” reconciled itself with fascist Germany and, in passing, took back naturally all the “social laws” which had been the by-product of the workers’ movement in 1936. All this was accomplished in accordance with the strict laws of the class struggle, and that is why this could be predicted, and was in fact predicted.

But the Socialists and the Communists, petty bourgeois blind men, found themselves caught unawares and covered their confusion with a hollow declamation: What? They, patriots and democrats, who helped reestablish order, curbed the labor movement, rendered inestimable service to the “republic,” that is, the imperialist bourgeoisie, are now booted out the door” without ceremony! In fact, if they have been booted outside, it is precisely for having rendered to the bourgeoisie all the services enumerated above. Gratitude has never yet been a factor in the class struggle.

Jouhaux Guarantees Betrayal

The discontent of the betrayed masses is immense. Jouhaux, Blum, and Thorez are constrained to do something in order not to lose their credit definitively. In response to the spontaneous movement of the workers, Jouhaux proclaims a “general strike,” a protest of “crossed arms.” Legal, peaceful, completely inoffensive protest! For twenty-four hours only, he explains with a deferential smile in the direction of the bourgeoisie. Order will not be disturbed, the workers will conserve a “dignified” calm, not a hair will tumble from the head of the ruling class. He gives a guarantee, he, Jouhaux. “Don’t you know me, Messrs. Bankers, Industrialists, and Generals? Have you forgotten that I saved you at the time of the war of 1914-1918?” Blum and Thorez second from their side the general secretary of the C.G.T.: “Only a peaceful protest, a little protest, sympathetic, patriotic!”

Meanwhile, Daladier militarizes the important categories of workers and prepares the troops. In the face of a proletariat with crossed arms, the bourgeoisie, recovering from its panic thanks to the Popular Front, prepares not at all to cross its arms; it intends to utilize the demoralization engendered by the Popular Front in the workers’ ranks in order to carry out a decisive coup. Under these conditions the strike could not end except by defeat.

What Means This Strike?

The French workers have recently passed through a tumultuous strike wave including the occupation of the factories. The subsequent stage for them could not be anything but a genuine revolutionary general strike which poses on the order of the day the conquest of power. No one indicates nor is able to indicate to the masses any other way out of the internal crisis, any other means of struggle against growing fascism and the war which draws near. Every French worker who reflects understands that the day following a theatrical strike of twenty-four hours with “arms crossed” the situation will not be better, but worse. Nevertheless the important categories of workers risk paying for it cruelly by loss of jobs, by fines, by punishment in prison. In the name of what? Order will in no case be disturbed, swears Jouhaux. Everything will remain in place: property, democracy, colonies, and with them misery, high cost of living, reaction and the danger of war. The masses are capable of enduring great sacrifices, but they wish to have before them a great political perspective. They must know clearly what is the goal, what are the methods, who is the friend, who is the enemy. Yet the leaders of the workers’ organizations have done everything in order to mislead and disorient the proletariat.

Yesterday the Radical party was still glorified as the most important element of the Popular Front, as the representative of progress, of democracy, of peace, etc. The confidence of the workers in the Radicals was not, certainly, very great. But they tolerated the Radicals to the extent to which they grant confidence to the Socialist, and Communist parties and the trade union organizations. The rupture in the top circles (with the Radicals) came about as always in such cases unexpectedly. The masses were kept in ignorance until the last moment. Worse yet, the masses were given information designed to permit the bourgeoisie to take the workers unawares. And still the workers made ready to enter into struggle. Entangled in their own nets, the “leaders” called the masses – don’t laugh! – to a “general strike.” Against whom? Against the “friends” of yesterday. In the name of what? No one knows. Opportunism is always accompanied by the contortions of adventurism.

Bureaucrats Prepare Defeat

The general strike is, by its very essence, a revolutionary means of struggle. In a general strike the proletariat assembles itself as a class against its class enemy. The use of the general strike is absolutely incompatible with the politics of the Popular Front which signifies alliance with the bourgeoisie, that is to say, the submission of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie. The miserable bureaucrats of the Socialist and Communist parties as well as of the trade unions consider the proletariat as a simple auxiliary instrument in their combinations behind the scenes with the bourgeoisie. They propose that the workers pay for a simple demonstration with sacrifices which cannot have any meaning in the workers’ eyes unless it is a question of a decisive struggle. As if the masses of millions of workers could make turns to the right and to the left at will, according to parliamentary combinations!

At bottom, Jouhaux. Blum and Thorez have done everything possible in order to assure the defeat of the strike: they themselves fear the struggle not less than the bourgeoisie; at the same time they are forced to create an alibi for themselves in the eyes of the proletariat. That is the habitual war strategem of reformists: to prepare the defeat of action by the masses and then accuse the masses of the defeat or, no better, praise themselves with a non-existent success. Can one be astonished that this opportunism, supplemented with homeopathic doses of adventurism, brings nothing else to the workers but defeat and humiliation?

Has the Revolution Begun?

On June 9, 1936, we wrote: “The French revolution has begun.” It must seem that events have refuted this diagnosis. The question is in reality more complicated. That the objective situation in France has been and still is revolutionary, there cannot be the least doubt. The crisis in the international situation of French imperialism; linked with it, the internal crisis of French capitalism; the financial crisis of the state; the political crisis of democracy; the extreme confusion of the bourgeoisie; the manifest absence of escape through the old traditional channels.

Nevertheless, as Lenin already indicated in 1913:

“It is not from every revolutionary situation that revolution surges but only from a situation such that, to the objective change is joined a subjective change – that is, the capacity of the revolutionary class to carry out revolutionary mass actions sufficiently powerful to crush ... the old government, which never, not even in the period of crisis, ‘fails’ if one does not ‘make’ it fail.”

Recent history has furnished a series of tragic confirmations of the fact that it is not from every revolutionary situation that a revolution surges, but that a revolutionary situation becomes counter-revolutionary if the subjective factor, that is, revolutionary offensive of the revolutionary class, does not come in time to aid the objective factor.

Popular Front Stems Revolutionary Tide

The vast torrent of strikes in 1936 demonstrated that the French proletariat was ready for revolutionary struggle and that it had already entered on the road of struggle. In this sense we had the full right to write that “the revolution has begun.” But “if it is not from every revolutionary situation that revolution surges,” neither is every beginning revolution assured a subsequent uninterrupted development. The beginning of a revolution, which hurls the young generation into the arena, is always colored with illusions, with naive hopes and with credulity. The revolution needs usually a harsh blow from the side of reaction in order to take a more decisive step forward.

If the French bourgeoisie had responded to the demonstrations and to the sit-down strikes, with police and military measures – and this would inevitably have been done if it had not had in its service Blum, Jouhaux, Thorez and Co, – the movement at an accelerated tempo would have reached a more elevated level; the struggle for power would have posed itself indubitably as the order of the day. But the bourgeoisie, utilizing the services of the Popular Front, responded by an apparent retreat and by temporary concessions; to the offensive of the strikers they opposed the ministry of Blum which appeared to the workers as their own, or almost their own, government. The C.G.T. and the Comintern supported this betrayal with all their strength.

In order to lead the revolutionary struggle for power, it is necessary to see clearly the class from whom the power must be wrested. The workers did not recognize the enemy because he, was disguised as a friend. In order to struggle for power, it is necessary moreover to have the instruments of struggle, the party, the trade unions, the Soviets. The workers found these instruments rubbed out, because the leaders of the workers’ organizations formed an enclosure around the bourgeois power in order to mask it, to render it unrecognizable and invulnerable. Thus the revolution that began found itself braked, arrested, demoralized.

The past two and a half years since then have revealed step by step the impotence, the falsity, and the hollowness of the Popular Front. What appeared to the laboring masses as a “popular” government is revealed to be simply a temporary mask of the imperialist bourgeoisie. This mask is now discarded. The bourgeoisie apparently think that the workers are sufficiently deluded and weakened; that the immediate danger of a revolution has passed. The ministry of Daladier is only, in accordance with the design of the bourgeoisie, an unavoidable stage in passing over to a stronger and more substantial government of the imperialist dictatorship.

Has the Revolutionary ‘Danger’ Passed?

Is the bourgeoisie correct in its diagnosis? Has the immediate danger to it really passed? In other words, has the revoution really been deferred to an indefinite, that is to say, remote future? Nothing demonstrates this. Assertions of this type are, at the least, hasty and premature. The last word in the present crisis has not yet been said. In any case to be optimistic over the accounts of the bourgeoisie is not at all the way of the revolutionary party, which is the first to sally forth on the field of battle and the last to leave it.

Bourgeois “democracy” has now become the privilege of the most powerful and the wealthiest exploiting and slave-holding nations. France belongs to this category, but among them she is the weakest link. Her specific economic weight has not corresponded for a long time with her world position inherited from the past. That is why imperialist France now falls under blows of history that she will not escape. The fundamental elements of the revolutionary situation not only have not disappeared in the last two or three years but have been, on the contrary, greatly strengthened. The international and internal situation of the country has grown worse. The war danger draws near. If the fear of the bourgeoisie before the revolution has been lessened, the general consciousness of an impasse has increased.

Nevertheless, how shall we present matters concerning the “subjective factors,” that is, concerning the will of the proletariat to struggle? This question – precisely because it concerns the subjective sphere and not the objective – cannot be resolved by a precise a priori investigation. What decides in the final score is living action, that is, the real movement of the struggle. But there do exist certain criteria, not without importance, for the evaluation of the “subjective factors”; even from a great distance one can deduce them from the experience of the last “general strike.”

The Workers Wanted to Fight

Unfortunately we cannot give here a detailed analysis of the struggle of the French workers in the second half of November and the first days of December. But even the most general data are sufficient for the question which interests us. The participation in the demonstration strike of close to two million workers, with five million members in the C.G.T. (at least on paper), is a defeat. But upon taking into account the political conditions already indicated and, above all, the fact that the principal “organizers” of the strike were at the same time the principal strike-breakers, the figure of two millions testifies to the spirit of struggle evinced by the French proletariat. This conclusion becomes even more evident and more clear in the light of previous events – the tumultuous meetings and demonstrations, the encounters with the police and the army, the strikes, the occupation of factories commencing November 17 and tending to increase with the active participation of the rank and file Communists, Socialists and syndicalists. The C.G.T. manifestly commences to lose footing in the events. On November 25 the trade union bureaucrats called a “non-political” peaceful strike for November 30. That is, five days later.

In other words, instead of developing, extending, and generalizing the genuine movement which took on more and more combative aspects, Jouhaux and Co. countered to this revolutionary movement with the hollow idea of a platonic protest. The delay of five days, at a moment when each day is a month, was necessary to the bureaucrats in order to paralyze, wipe out, in tacit collaboration with the authorities, the movement which was developing spontaneously and which they feared no less than did the bourgeoisie. The police and military measures of Daladier could not have had serious effect unless Jouhaux and Co. had driven the movement into an impasse.

The non-participation (or weak participation) in the “general strike” by the railway workers, workers in the war industries, metal workers. and other advanced layers of the proletariat was in no case due to indifference on their part: during the previous two weeks the workers of these categories had taken an active part in the struggle. But precisely the advanced layers understood better than the others, above all after Daladier’s measures, that now it is not a question of demonstrations nor of platonic protests but of the struggle for power. The participation of the most backward or, from a social point of view, less important layers of workers, in the demonstration-strike testifies on the other hand to the profound crisis of the country and to the fact that in the toiling masses revolutionary energy still exists despite the years of disintegrating Popular Front politics.

Find Road to Workers!

History has shown certainly that even after a decisive and definitive defeat of the revolution the most backward layers of the workers have undertaken the offensive, the railway workers, the metal workers, etc., remaining passive. This, for example, happened in Russia after the crushing of the insurrection of December 1905. But that situation was the result of the fact that the advanced layers had already consumed their strength in the long previous battles: strikes, lockouts, demonstrations, encounters with the police and the army, insurrections. One cannot say this for the French proletariat. The movement of 1936 has not in any way consumed the forces of the vanguard. The deception invoked by the Popular Front has been able, certainly, to bring about a temporary demoralization in certain layers; but this is balanced by the exacerbation of revolt and impatience in other layers. At the same time the movements of 1936 as well as 1938 have enriched the entire proletariat with an invaluable experience and developed thousands of local workers’ leaders independent of the official bureaucracy. It is necessary to understand how to find access to these leaders, to link them with one another, to arm them with a revolutionary program.We have not the least intention of offering from afar counsel on tactics to our French friends who find themselves on the scene of action and who can feel much better than we the pulse of the masses. Nevertheless, for all revolutionary Marxists it is now more than ever evident that the only serious and definitive measure for drawing a balance of the forces, among them the willingness of the masses to struggle, is action. Pitiless criticism of the Second and of the Third Internationals has no revolutionary value except to the extent that it aids in mobilizing the advance guard for direct intervention in the events. The fundamental slogans for the mobilization are given in the program of the Fourth International, which has in the present period a more timely character In France than in any other country. On our French comrades there rests an immense political responsibility. To aid the French section of the Fourth International with all our forces and with all our means, moral and material, is the most important and most imperious duty of the international revolutionary vanguard.

3304. France at a Crossroads

By Richard Greeman, January 13, 2020 

The longest strike movement since 1968

The nationwide general strike in France, now entering its record seventh week, seems to be approaching its crisis point. Despite savage police repression, about a million people are in the streets protesting President Macron’s proposed neo-liberal “reform” of France’s retirement system, established at the end of World War II and considered one of the best in the world. At bottom, what is at stake is a whole vision of what kind of society people want to live in – one based on cold market calculation or one based on human solidarity – and neither side shows any sign of willingness to compromise.

Now or Never?

On one side, the Macron government has staked its legitimacy on pushing through this key “reform” intact as a matter of principle, however unpopular. On the other side stand the striking railroad and transit workers, who are bearing the brunt of this conflict and have already sacrificed thousands of Euros in lost pay since the strike began last Dec. 5. After six weeks, they cannot accept the prospect of returning to work empty-handed, and they have set their sights high: withdrawal of the whole government project. 

This looks like a “now or never” situation. Moreover, it seems clear that the transport workers mean business. When the government (and the union leaders) proposed a “truce” in the transport strike during the sacred Christmas/New Year vacation period, the rank and file voted to continue the struggle, and their leaders were obliged to eat their words. 

Nor are the transport workers isolated, despite the inconvenience to commuters and other travelers. They have been joined by emergency-room nurses and doctors (who have been on strike for months over lack of beds, personnel and materials), public school teachers (protesting undemocratic and incomprehensible “reforms” to the national curriculum), lawyers and judges (visible in their judicial robes), and the dancers at the Paris Opera (visible in their tutus) among the other professions joining the strike.

Strikers and “Yellow Vests” Together

Along side the strikers, and quite visible among them, the so-called Yellow Vests are a crucial element. For over a year, they have been setting a “bad example” of self-organized, largely leaderless, social protest which captured the public imagination and through direct action in the streets won some real concessions from Macron in December 2018. This victory impressed the rank-and-file of the French organized labor movement, which after three months of disciplined, but limited, stop-and-go strikes in the Spring of 2018, failed utterly to wring any concessions and went back to work poor and empty-handed while Macron pushed through a series of neoliberal privatizations and cuts in unemployment compensation. 

Although their numbers diminished, the Yellow Vests continued their spontaneous protests throughout 2019 despite savage government repression, distorted media coverage stressing Black Block violence, and snubbing on the part of the union leadership; but their “bad example” was not lost on the union rank and file. Today’s general strike was originally sparked last September by a spontaneous walkout by Paris subway workers, who, contrary to custom, spontaneously shut down the system without asking permission from their leaders and management. 

Meanwhile, the Yellow Vests, initially suspicious of the unions but isolated in their struggle with Macron, had begun to seek “convergence” with the French labor movement. Finally, at the Yellow Vest national “Assembly of Assemblies” last November, their delegates voted near-unanimously to join the “unlimited general strike” proposed for Dec. 5 by the unions. Reversing his previous standoffishness, Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT labor federation, immediately welcomed their participation. 

Government Provocation

Today’s intractable nationwide confrontation over retirement – a sacred cow, like Social Security in the U.S. – is best understood as a deliberate provocation on the part of Macron, both in its form and its substance. There was no urgent reason for pension reform, nor for abolishing the venerable system outright and hastily replacing it from above with an abstract neo-liberal plan based on “universality.” The pension program was not in debt, and the alleged need to replace the twenty-odd “special” retirement funds –negotiated over the years with the representatives of different trades and professions –with a single “point system” in the name of fairness, efficiency and rationality was only a smokescreen. 

In fact, these “special funds” cover only about one percent of retirees – a million or so miners, railroad workers, transit workers, sailors, ballet dancers and such – who get to retire early because of the physically or mentally taxing nature of their specific labors. (Even if you include the four million public employees as “special,” the figure rises to under 25%). Moreover, Macron has himself recently violated this principle of “universality” by giving special exceptions to the police and army (whom he cannot afford to alienate) and the ballerinas of the Opera (whom no one can imagine toe-dancing at the age of sixty). 

Behind this confusing smokescreen of “fairness to all” is an old con: equalize benefits by reducing them to the lowest common denominator. Indeed, according to independent calculations, under Macron’s point system the average pension would be reduced by about 30%. And since these “points” would be calculated over the total lifetime number of years worked before retirement, rather than on the current criterion of 75% of the worker’ best or final years, Macron’s point system would particularly penalize those whose careers were irregular – for example, women who took off years for child-care. Yet the government brazenly claims that women will be “the big winners” in this so-called reform!

A Pig in a Poke

However, the biggest con embodied in this point system is that the actual cash value of each accumulated point would only be calculated at the time of retirement. The sum in Euros would then be determined by the government then in power on the basis of the economic situation at that moment (for example in 2037 when the plan goes into full effect). Thus, under the present system, every school-teacher, railroad worker and clerk can calculate how much s/he will received when s/he retires at 62 and plan accordingly (for example opting for early retirement). Macron’s point system would leave her in total darkness until it is too late. His system resembles a gambling casino where you buy 10 chips for a certain amount (say 10 Euros each), place your bets, and later take your winning chips to the cashier’s window only to discover that your chips are now worth only 5 Euros each. Surprise! The house wins!

Today, thanks to their existing pension system, French people live on average five years longer than other Europeans. Moreover, according to the New York Times: “In France the poverty rate among those older than 65 is less than 5 percent, largely because of the pension system, while in the United States it approaches 20 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In France, life expectancy is increasing, while in the United States it is diminishing in significant sectors of the population.”  And although the pro-government French media have presented Macron’s confused and confusing reform in the best possible light, it is a hard sell. So why change it?

Not an Ordinary President

When Emmanuel Macron took power in 2017, he vowed he would not be “an ordinary president.” From the beginning he has openly proclaimed his iron determination to revolutionize French society in order to bring it into line with the neo-liberal Thatcher/Reagan revolution of the 1980’s, and his methods have been authoritarian. He has imposed his program of privatizations and counter-reforms from above, mainly by decree, deliberately circumventing negotiations with “intermediate bodies” like the parliament, the political parties, the local authorities and above all the labor unions, who have traditionally been the “social partners” (official designation) of government along with the employers’ associations (who are Macron’s main base of support). 

Backed by the mainstream media (controlled by the government and three big corporations) Macron has been so far largely successful in steam-rolling through his neo-liberal program, openly designed to improve French “competitivity” (i.e. corporate profits) by lowering living standards (thus increasing inequality).  If successful, his proposed “reform” of pensions would open the gates to his ultimate goal, the “reform” of France’s socialized healthcare system (Medicare for all), already on the road to privatization.  

Naturally, all these moves have been unpopular, but until now Macron, whose executive style has been characterized as “imperial,” has been successful in dividing and destabilizing his opposition – if necessary through massive use of police violence. This has been the fate of the spontaneous movement of Yellow Vests, who have been subjected to routine beatings and tear-gas attacks as well as hundreds of serious injuries (including blindings, torn-off hands and several deaths) – all with police impunity and media cover-ups. Now the government’s savage repressive methods – condemned by the U.N. and the European Union – are being applied to strikers and union demonstrators traditionally tolerated by the forces of order in France. 

This repression may turn out to be like throwing oil on the flames of conflict. On January 9, at the end of the peaceful, legal, mass marches (estimated half-million demonstrators nationwide), members of the particularly brutal BAC (Anti-Criminal Brigade) in Paris, Rouen and Lille were ordered to break off sections of the marches, surround them, inundate them with teargas, and then charge in among them with truncheons and flash-ball launchers fired at close range, resulting in 124 injuries (25 of them serious), and 980 sickened by gas. 

These brutal attacks, which focused particularly on journalists and females (nurses and teachers) were captured on shocking videos, viewed millions of times on YouTube, but pooh-poohed by government spokesmen. Far from discouraging the strikers, this deliberate violence may only enrage them. And, what with the “bad example” of the Yellow Vests,” the labor leaders may not be able to reign them in.

The Center Cannot Hold

Why is Macron risking his prestige and his Presidency on this precarious face-off with the labor leadership, traditionally viewed as the compliant hand-maidens of the government on such occasions? Historians here recall that in 1936 Maurice Thorez, leader of Communist-affiliated CGT (General Confederation of Workers), brought the general strike and factory occupations to an end with the slogan “We must learn how to end a strike” and that at the Liberation of France in 1945 the same Thorez, fresh from Moscow, told the workers to “roll up your sleeves” and rebuild French capitalism before striking for socialism. Similarly in 1968, during the spontaneous student-worker uprising, the CGT negotiated a settlement with De Gaulle and literally dragged reluctant strikers back to work. 

Not for nothing are today’s government-subsidized French unions officially designated as “social partners” (along with government and business), yet Macron, loyal to neo-liberal, Thatcherite doctrine, has consistently humiliated the CGT’s Martinez and the other union leaders and excluded them – along with the other “intermediary bodies – from the policy-making process.

Something’s Got to Give

France’s “not-an-ordinary-President” has from the beginning remained consistent with his vision of an imperial presidency. Although seen by many abroad as a “progressive,” Macron, like Trump, Putin, and other contemporary heads of state, adheres to the neo-liberal doctrine of “authoritarian democracy,” and he is apparently willing to stake his future, and the future of France, on subduing his popular opposition, particularly the unions, once and for all. 

Thus, what is at stake today is not just a quarrel over pension rights, which would normally be negotiated and adjudicated through a political process including political parties, elected representatives, parliamentary coalitions and collective bargaining with labor, but a question of what kind of future society French people are going to live in: social-democratic or neo-liberal authoritarian. The seasoned Paris bureau chief of the NY Times Adam Nossiter put it simply in his revealing Jan. 9 article: “A fight between the rich and the poor amplified by 200 years of French history.”

A technocrat and former Rothschild banker, Macron rose to power unexpectedly in 2017 when the traditional Left and Right parties fell apart during the first round of the Presidential Election, leaving him alone as the lesser of two evils candidate in a face-off with the proto-fascist National Front of LePen. Considered “the President of the rich” by most French people, Macron must remain inflexible because he has nothing behind him but the Bourse (Stock Exchange), the MEDEF (Manufacturers’ Association), and the police. 

Second Thoughts

On the other hand, as the struggle enters its seventh week, it occurs to me that if this were true general strike, if all the organized workers had walked out on December 5, if the railroads, the subways, the buses, the schools and the hospitals – not to mention the refineries and the electrical generators – had been shut down, it would all have been over in a few days. 

But this is not the U.S. where in Sept-Oct. 2019, 48,000 members of the United Auto Workers recently shut down 50 General Motors plants for more than six weeks, and where not a single worker, not a single delivery of parts, not a single finished car crossed the picket lines until the strike was settled. 

In France, there are no “union shops” much less closed shops, few if any strike funds, and as many as five different union federations competing for representation in a given industry. Here picket lines, where they exist, are purely informational, and anywhere from 10% to 90% of the workers may show up on the job on any given day during a strike. Today, for example, seven out of ten TGV high-speed bullet-trains were running as many railroad workers returned to the job to pay their bills while planning to go back on strike and join the demonstrations later in the week. How long can this go on?

“When in irresistible force meets an immovable object, something’s got to give,” goes the old saying, and a show-down seems to be in the offing. With his arrogant intransigence over the retirement issue, Macron is apparently risking his presidency on one throw of the dice. Only time will tell. And Macron may be betting that time is on his side, waiting for the movement to slowly peter out so as to push through his reforms later in the Spring.

Update: French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s much-ballyhooed Jan. 12 declaration of a “provisionary” withdrawal of his proposal to extend the “pivotal” age of retirement from 62 to 64 is yet another smokescreen designed to divide the opposition and further prolong the struggle, as suggested above. 

Although denounced as such by the CGT and other striking unions, the government’s promise was immediately accepted by the openly class-collaborationist (“moderate”) CFDT union, to their mutual advantage. The CFDT will now be included in the negotiations over the financing of the proposed point system, which the CFDT, having collaborated with previous governments in earlier neo-liberal reforms, supports. 

Philippe’s declaration is obviously an empty promise, as there are only two ways of increasing the retirement fund: either by extending the number of years paid in or by increasing the amount annual contributions, which are shared by labor and management. And although labor has signaled its willingness to raise its dues, the MEDEF (manufacturers’ association) has adamantly refused to pay its share, ruling out the obvious solution to this manufactured crisis.