France

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blindpig
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:56 pm

Macron Throws Gasoline on the Fire, French Workers' Leader Says

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A riot police officer points his gun towards protesters, France, March 23, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @CartesDuMonde

Instead of assuming the legitimacy of the protests, President Emmanuel Macron verbally lashes out at the French, comparing them to Brazilian and U.S. right-wing extremists.


On Thursday, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) harshly criticized President Emmanuel Macron, who made statements downplaying the importance of the massive protests against his pension reform.

During an interview on Wednesday, Macron tried to discredit the French protests by comparing them to acts of vandalism perpetrated by far-right militants in Brazil and the United States.

"He threw a can of gasoline on the fire... That is a provocation," CGT Secretary Philippe Martinez said referring to the ongoing reactions in a country that is going through an "explosive situation" during the 9th day of national protest.

But "Macron doesn't care," the workers' leader said, explaining that the defamatory phrases against French citizens are part of a government strategy to magnify some incidents resulting from the outrage of the people.


"There's a lot of anger... A lot of high school and college students are out on the streets," Martinez also pointed out.

CFDT Secretary Laurent Berger also complained about the comparisons made by President Macron and stressed that his union is against any violent action against property and people.

On Thursday, however, the riot police unleashed strong altercations with the citizens. In the city of Rennes, for example, officers used water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters, who clashed vigorously with police.

In Lorient, angry citizens attacked government offices and a police station, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who said such acts would not go unpunished.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Mac ... -0008.html

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Call for new union and social mobilizations in France

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Dozens of arrests were recorded in various cities due to riots and clashes with security forces | Photo: EFE
Published 24 March 2023

Protests were called for next weekend in rejection of the initiative adopted last Monday by the French executive.

The main unions in France called on Thursday for a new national day of protests against the retirement reform promoted by President Emmanuel Macron, after massive demonstrations violently repressed by the police, official media reported.

In a statement released by the Intersindical platform, protests were called for next weekend in rejection of the initiative adopted last Monday by the French executive to extend the retirement age from 62 to 64 and increase the contribution period.

The social and union movement, which brings together the unions mobilized against the neoliberal reform, confirmed the determination of the world of work and youth to achieve that the reform be withdrawn.


According to the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), on the ninth day of protests, 3,500,000 people participated, 800,000 of them in Paris, the capital. For its part, the Ministry of the Interior estimated the protesters nationwide at one million and those in Paris at 119,000.

Unions, left-wing parties and social organizations accused the police of excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, although the authorities denounced the violence of some protesters, linked to the so-called "black bloc", which frequently breaks into mobilizations to sow chaos. .


Dozens of arrests were registered in several cities due to riots and clashes with security forces, in an increasingly tense scenario, fueled by the Government's decision to adopt the retirement reform under article 49.3 of the Constitution, ignoring the vote of the National Assembly.

The day before, President Emmanuel Macron defended his project and suggested, without mentioning it directly, that the French should take the decision, in order to move towards other issues, among which he highlighted employment, education and ecology.


For her part, the former presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, a representative of the extreme right, a sector that does not participate in the demonstrations but rejects the measure, described the signal sent by the mobilization as very strong and affirmed that Macron governs alone, when I should do it with the people.

In this sense, the platforms of the protesters stressed that “The anger does not subside. The inappropriate and offensive attitude and comments of the President of the Republic have reinforced it. Today it has resulted in a wave of protesters demanding the withdrawal of this unfair pension reform”.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/convocan ... -0007.html

Google Translator

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Resistance to pension reform in France intensifies

Trade unions and left groups in France have escalated protests against the unpopular pension reforms which were passed recently by the government

March 24, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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Massive mobilizations rocked France on Thursday, March 23. Workers have given an ultimatum to French President Emmanuel Macron demanding that his government withdraw the pension reform that was passed without a vote in parliament.

According to estimates by unions, a total of around 3.5 million people hit the streets in more than 250 locations across France on Thursday.

Workers have continued work stoppages in critical areas including energy, transportation, railways, seaports, airports, industries, school, colleges and universities, municipal services including waste management, and tightened blockades of major roads, bridges and roundabouts in major cities. Sporadic clashes with security forces have been reported in several areas along with arrests of protesters.

On March 22 in an TV interview, Macron reiterated his plan to implement the pension reform by the end of the year and did not show any willingness to cede to the demands put forth by the platform of trade unions and left-wing parties to roll back the reform, or to conduct a national referendum on its implementation. The unpopular reform, announced on January 10, called to increase the retirement age in the country from 62 to 64 and made 43 years of service mandatory to avail full pensions and benefits. Heavy deployment of security forces continues in cities under the order of Macron to remove blockades.

On March 16, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invoked the emergency provision Article 49.3 of the constitution to bypass voting in the National Assembly, and passed the “law amending financing of Social Security for 2023,” instituting the controversial pension reform proposed on January 10. The move triggered spontaneous protest across the country. Protests intensified when the government survived a vote of no-confidence on March 20, tabled by opposition groups in the National Assembly. The motion failed after falling short of just nine votes.

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Action by the CNRS divers from Roscoff. Photo: CGT

Trade unionists affiliated to General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and others have raised banners protesting the reform at the summit of Canigou at Pyrenees in Southern France, and CNRS divers from Roscoff mounted the CGT flag on the seabed to protest the reform.

On Thursday, Fabien Roussel MP, leader of the French Communist Party (PCF), said, “Macron is betting on violence, chaos in the country” while his “government is hanging by a thread. In a few days, we went from the debate on pensions to police violence.”

He has also called to expand the mobilization, to bring the country to a standstill and hit the economy hard. Roussell urged “the creation of a union between the left and the trade union organizations to work hand in hand.”

Trade unions and left movements from Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, and elsewhere expressed support and solidarity towards the French protests.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/03/24/ ... tensifies/

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Macron must go
March 23, 6:50 p.m

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France is rising up against the tyrannical regime of Macron. The country was engulfed in riots and strikes, people smashing shops, setting fire to police stations, burning cars, blocking the work of airports, waste incinerators, LNG terminals, refineries and highways. The unions say this is just the beginning, and they are building on the overwhelming opposition to Macron's pension reform and intend to push for its repeal. The radical part of the protesters goes further and demands the resignation of the government, the resignation of Macron and new elections.

Lots of videos from the protests:

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81198
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81208

Macron's dictatorial regime must go. France will be a free country.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8245027.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Sun Mar 26, 2023 2:04 pm

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The movement against the pension reform
Originally published: CrimethInc. on March 22, 2023 by Crimethinc. (more by CrimethInc.) | (Posted Mar 25, 2023)

In France, a new surge of protest activity has erupted against the government of Emmanuel Macron in response to an unpopular pension reform. This promises to be the most powerful unrest in France since the Yellow Vest movement. In the following introduction and translation, we explore the roots, forms, and prospects of this movement.

Introduction

The bastards know it well: what they feared in the quasi-insurrection of 2018 is not so much a social subject—whatever the worst leftist sociology says—nor even a set of practices. It was an ungovernability, determined and diffuse. A wave of hatred of the neoliberal universe.
– La Haine


After two months of traditional protests and occasional strikes stage-managed by the intersyndicale (the coordination of the eight biggest national unions in France), the movement against Macron’s government pension reform came to a head when Elizabeth Borne (Macron’s prime minister and the head of the government) announced that she was going to use article 49.3 of the Constitution to implement the pension reform without a vote in the National Assembly.

During those first two months, large numbers of people took to the streets, but despite public support, the protests and strikes were not combative. However, the deputies in the National Assembly were divided; it was possible that a majority would oppose the pension reform, so Borne sidestepped them. The law still has to be approved by the Senate, but for now, that is beside the point. French deputies opposed to Macron and Borne filed for a vote of confidence, which would have pushed Borne’s government out of office.

On the night of Thursday, March 16, people spontaneously assembled in symbolic locations in Paris and other cities to protest the use of article 49.3. As the night wore on, they refused to leave, despite police becoming more and more violent. In the end, police arrested a large number of people across France—almost 300 in Paris alone—almost all of whom were released without charges the next day.

Over the weekend, spontaneous street protests (les “manifs sauvages”) broke out, taking advantage of a garbage collection strike to fill the streets of Paris with flaming garbage bins. As police violence intensifies, the “spontaneous” aspect of these protest plays an important technical role. Most mass protests in France, such as the ones that took place before Thursday, are “déclarées”—groups register them with the police beforehand. Spontaneous protests are legal, but the framework for repression is less clear than it is for the authorized demonstrations. This is a big issue: courts still have to rule on whether you can be arrested simply for being in the vicinity of a spontaneous protest, what the consequences should be for leading a spontaneous protest, whether the French constitutional right to demonstrate includes spontaneous protests, and what the police can legally do to target people at these protests.

Moreover, all the authorized protests have a set location or route, whereas the current spontaneous protests are unpredictable. They do not converge on a strategic location, nor do they have a particular goal aside from harassing the cops. Groups ranging from 100 to 1000 move in different directions all around a given area, barricading the streets, painting, and setting things on fire. Just as occurred during the 2020 George Floyd uprising in the United States, the police can’t contain and control several groups at once.

We can handle one 10,000-person protest, but ten 1000-person protests throughout the city will overwhelm us.
– Los Angeles police officer, summer 2020


The more fatigued they get, the more violent the cops become. People are being very brave, but they are also sustaining serious injuries and trauma.


These spontaneous street protests are occurring at night, while early in the morning and during the day, the strike has been intensifying, with people organizing more and more blockades. The strike began before the application of article 49.3 last Thursday; the chief sectors that are participating are include garbage processing (collection and incineration), fuel distribution (refineries and transportation), and public transportation (city transit, trains, and airports).

The unions have called for a nationwide strike this Thursday, March 23. When the leadership announced this last week, it came across as an effort at pacification, to get people out of the streets; but because people did not cease to take to the streets, instead, it now represents an opportunity to escalate. We expect the country to be blocked, and for the unions to be outflanked by spontaneous direct actions all over the country, involving both autonomous groups and local union branches. This has already begun to occur—in Fos-sur-Mer or in Rennes, for example.


In Paris, the people leading the strike are the garbage collectors, working from three different locations. They have been on strike since March 7, and have maintained picket lines since then. Only one picket line has been breached by police, and it has reformed since then. They need money to keep the strike going. They have become the stars of the movement, in some way, because the garbage accumulating in the streets of Paris has provided the ideal material for the nighttime crowds to set on fire—an endlessly replenishing resource for as long as the garbage trucks remain inoperable.

Generally speaking, the people on the picket lines are workers and leftists of various stripes, while those running the streets at night are younger and rowdier. These groups are not antagonistic to one another, which has not always been the case in the French political landscape. People seem to enjoy meeting each other when and where they can; there are no general assemblies bringing all the generations together, but neither the unions nor the older leftists are condemning the nighttime riots.

Over the preceding months, a conversation had developed about how COVID-19 caused a break in the transmission of techniques, stories, and cultures of struggle in French activist circles, and how that led to the propagation of centralized (and frankly, boring) politics in many universities. In this movement, we are seeing new political formations emerge along with decentralized and autonomous experiments in direct action and resistance, revealing the limitations of the traditional means of control and repression. The events of the past week show that we can put to rest any fears about the passivity of the younger generation.

Last Monday, the National Assembly voted not reject the government, further outraging people. The fact that the government of Macron and Borne remains in power will keep the precarious balance between nationalist and leftists agendas stable, for now. But for how long?


As in the Yellow Vest movement of 2018, nationalism is a driving force in these protests. No one has really pulled out the French flags yet, but they could make their appearance soon. For good or for ill, since the Yellow Vests, the mainstream French political imagination has been almost entirely focused on the French Revolution. People are calling for Macron to be beheaded, to protect the sacred honor of French democracy, and so on. All this comes with a broad and—thus far—diffuse nationalism. Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party is waiting in the wings to capitalize on the situation.

To continue growing, the movement will have to surpass its current limits. So far, the riots and the blockades have been majority white; most working-class people of color won’t benefit from the current pension system anyway. Unless it becomes clear what they might have to gain from this movement, they probably will not take to the streets, and that will limit the possibility of an insurrection. Likewise, while dramatic images have indeed circulated from Paris and other cities, unlike the Yellow Vests, this movement started in the big cities, and it remains unclear how far it will spread to the more rural areas of the country.

Likewise, it remains to be seen how a new round of unrest in France would influence movements elsewhere around the world. The rhythm of unrest in France is generally out of sync with political events elsewhere. The Occupy movement and its equivalents took place in Spain, Greece, the United States, and even Germany in 2011, but the French equivalent, Nuit Debout, occurred a full five years later; the Yellow Vest movement began a year ahead of most of the global revolts of 2019. But with movements picking up steam again in Greece and elsewhere, events in France could contribute to shaping the popular imagination around the world. None of the tensions that catalyzed the global revolts of 2019 and the George Floyd uprising of 2020 have been resolved. From the United States and France to Russia and Iran, governments have simply attempted to suppress dissent with brute force, as people slowly, steadily become more desperate and angry.

In the short term, comrades in France are hoping to build power to resist the upcoming repressive laws targeting migrants, undocumented people, houseless people, and squatters that are in the works of Macron and Borne’s government. In Paris and the neighboring areas specifically, the struggle against the city’s preparation for the Olympic Games in summer 2024 is also on many people’s minds. Reclaiming the streets is urgent when evictions, destruction of parks and public spaces, and the construction of massive and unnecessary infrastructure in the northern suburbs of Paris is being weaponized as a means to control and cleanse traditionally working-class neighborhoods.

Bedtime for Macronerie?
This is a translation of “La macronie, bientôt finie?”

The announcement on Thursday, March 16 that the government would use article 49.3 of the Constitution to impose its pension reform without a National Assembly vote propelled the protest movement into a new dimension. Despite fierce repression, a strange mixture of anger and joy is spreading throughout the country: spontaneous demonstrations, surprise blockades of main roads, invasions of shopping centers or railway tracks, dumping garbage in the offices of deputies, nighttime garbage fires, targeted power outages, and more. The situation has become uncontrollable and the president has no plan other than to promise that he will hold out at all costs and sink into a headlong rush of violence. The days to come will therefore be decisive: either the movement will wear out its energy—though everything indicates the opposite—or Macron’s rule will collapse. In this text, we’ll try to present a progress report, analyzing the forces involved as well as their strategies and objectives in the short and medium terms.

Alone against All
If we consider the two forces officially present, the situation is unique in that neither can permit themselves to lose. On the one hand, we have the “social movement,” which we often think has disappeared but which always returns for lack of anything better. The most optimistic see in this the necessary prelude to building a rapport de force that could pave the way for an uprising or even revolution. The most pessimistic believe that, on the contrary, it is compromised from the outset—that the channeling and ritualization of popular discontent contributes to the good management of the prevailing order and therefore to maintaining and reinforcing it.

Be that as it may—on paper, this “social movement” has everything to win: the unions are united, the demonstrations are numerous, public opinion is largely favorable to it, and although the government was elected democratically, it is very much in the minority. The stars are therefore aligned, all the lights are green; in such objectively favorable conditions, if the “social movement” loses, that means that it will never again be able to imagine or claim to win anything.

On the other side, there is Emmanuel Macron, his government, and some fanatics who believe in him. They know they are in the minority, but that is where they draw their strength from. Macron is not a president who was elected to be liked or even appreciated. He embodies the terminus of politics: his pure and perfect adherence to the economy, to efficiency, to performance. He does not see the people, life, human beings, only atoms from which to extract value. Macron is a kind of evil droid who wants the best for those he governs against their will. His idea of politics is an Excel spreadsheet: as long as the calculations are correct and the numbers come out right, he will continue to move forward at a steady pace. On the other hand, he knows that if he hesitates, trembles, or gives up, he will not be able to claim to govern anything or anyone.

A face-off is not a symmetry, however. What threatens the “social movement” is fatigue and resignation. The only thing that could make the president give up is the concrete risk of an uprising. Since the use of article 49.3 on Thursday, March 16, we see that the situation is changing. Now that negotiation with the authorities has become obsolete, the “social movement” is boiling over and surpassing itself. Its contours are becoming pre-insurrectional.

There remains a third, unofficial force, inertia: those who, for the moment, refuse to join the battle out of laziness, happenstance, or fear. At present, they are effectively playing for the government, but the more unstable the situation, the more they will have to take sides, whether for the movement or for the government. The great achievement of the Yellow Vests was to bring frustration and dissatisfaction out from behind the screens, getting people offline and into the streets.


The Best Retirement Is Attack1
But what is really behind this confrontation and its staging? What is it that grips the heart, inspiring courage or rage? What is at stake is the rejection of work.

Obviously, no one dares to formulate the issue this way, because as soon as we talk about work, an old trap closes on us. Its mechanism is, however, rudimentary and well known: behind the very concept of work, one has voluntarily confused two quite distinct realities. On the one hand, work as singular participation in collective life, in its richness and creativity. On the other hand, work as a particular form of individual labor in the capitalist organization of life—that is, work as pain and exploitation. If one ventures to criticize work, or even to wish for its abolition, that will usually be understood as a petit-bourgeois whim or gutter punk nihilism. If we want to eat bread, we need bakers; if we want bakers, we need bakeries; if we want bakeries, we need masons; and for the dough we put in the oven, we need farmers who sow, harvest, and so on. No one, of course, is in a position to dispute such evidence.

The problem, our problem, is that if we reject work to such an extent, if we are millions in the streets pounding the pavement to avoid being subjected to two more years of work, it is not because we are lazy or dream of joining a bridge club, but because the form that the common and collective effort has taken in this society is unbearable, humiliating, often meaningless and mutilating. If you think about it, we have never fought for retirement—always against work.

For people to recognize collectively on a grand scale that for the great majority of us, work is pain: the authorities cannot permit that idea to take hold, for it would imply the destruction of the whole social edifice, without which they would be nothing. If our common condition is that we have no power over our lives and know it, then paradoxically, everything becomes possible again. Let us note that revolutions do not necessarily need great theories and complex analyses; it is sometimes enough simply to make a tiny demand that one holds onto until the end. It would be enough, for example, to refuse to be humiliated: by a schedule, by a salary, by a manager or a task. It would be enough to have a collective movement that suspends the anguish of the calendar, the to-do-list, the agenda. It would suffice to claim the most minimal dignity for oneself, one’s family and others, and the whole system would collapse. Capitalism has never been anything other than the objective and economic organization of humiliation and pain.


A Critique of Violence
Having said that, we must recognize that in the immediate future, the social organization that we are contesting is not only held together by the blackmail for survival that it imposes on everyone. It is also held together by the violence of the police. We won’t get into the social role of the police and the reasons they behave so detestably; those have already been synthesized well enough in the text “Why All Cops Are Bastards.” What seems urgent to us is to think strategically about their violence, what it represses and stifles via terror and intimidation.

In the last few days, researchers and commentators have denounced the lack of professionalism of the police—their excesses, their arbitrariness, sometimes even their violence. Even on BFMTV [the most-watched conservative news channel in France], they were surprised that out of the 292 people arrested on Thursday, March 16 at Place de la Concorde, 283 were released from police custody without prosecution and the remaining 9 were given a simple reprimand. The problem with this kind of indignation is that, in focusing on a perceived dysfunction of the system, they prevent themselves from seeing what can only be an intentional strategy. If hundreds of BRAV-M [the Brigades de répression des actions violentes motorisées, police motorcycle units established during the Yellow Vest protests] are roaming the streets of Paris to chase down and beat up protesters, if on Friday a prefectural decree forbade any gathering anywhere in an area comprising about a quarter of the entire capital, that is because [Emmanuel] Macron, [Minister of the Interior Gérald] Darmanin, and [Paris Police Prefect Laurent] Nuñez have agreed on the method: empty the streets, shock the bodies, terrify the hearts… while waiting for it to pass.

Let’s repeat, one never wins “militarily” against the police. Police represent an obstacle that must be kept in check, dodged, exhausted, disorganized, or demoralized. To do away with the police is not to naïvely hope that one day they will lay down their arms and join the movement, but on the contrary, to make sure that each of their attempts to reimpose order through violence produces more disorder. Let’s remember that on the first Saturday of the Yellow Vests movement, on the Champs Elysees [a famous avenue in Paris], the crowd that felt particularly legitimate chanted “the police with us.” A few police charges and tear gas later, the most beautiful avenue in the world was transformed into a battlefield.


Learning the Lessons of Repression
That said, our strategic decision-making capacities for the street are very limited. We have no general staff, only our common sense, our numbers, and a certain inclination towards improvising. In the current configuration, we can nevertheless draw some lessons from these last weeks:

The policing of demonstrations, which is to say, the task of keeping them within the bounds of harmlessness, is a task shared between the union leaders and the police force. A demonstration that goes as planned is a victory for the government. A demonstration that overflows the bounds prepared for it spreads anxiety to the top of the government, demoralizes the police, and brings us closer to the abolition of work. A crowd that no longer accepts the police-led route, that damages the symbols of the economy and expresses its anger joyously, is a disruption and therefore a threat.
Until now, with the exception of March 7, all mass demonstrations have been contained by the police. The trade union processions have remained perfectly orderly and the most determined demonstrators were systematically isolated and brutally repressed. In some circumstances, a little audacity releases the energy necessary to escape from the frame; in others, it can enable the police to violently close down any possibility. It happens that when you want to break a window, you first break your nose on the edge of the frame.
Because of their speed of movement and their extreme brutality, the BRAV-M cops are the most formidable obstacle. The confidence that they have built up over the past few years and especially in recent weeks must be undermined. If we cannot rule out the possibility that small groups will occasionally outwit them and reduce their audacity, the most effective option would be for the peaceful crowd of union members and demonstrators to no longer tolerate their presence, to stand with their hands up whenever these cops attempt to break through the demonstration, to shout at them and push them away. If their appearance in the demonstrations starts causing disorder instead of restoring order, Mr. Nunez will be forced to exile them to the Ile de la Cité [the island in the center of Paris], to cloister them in their garage on rue Chanoinesse.
On Thursday, March 16, following the announcement of the use of article 49.3, a union demonstration announced ahead of time and more scattered calls converged on the other side of the Concorde bridge in front of the National Assembly. The primary objective of the police being to protect the representatives of the nation, theys pushed the crowd back to the south. Thanks to this maneuver, the demonstrators found themselves propelled into and dispersed throughout the tourist streets of the city center. The piles of garbage left by the garbage collectors’ strike spontaneously became bonfires, slowing down and preventing police responses. Spontaneously, in many cities around the country, burning garbage cans became the signature of the movement.
On Friday March 17, a new call to go to the Place de la Concorde was contained. Though the demonstrators were courageous and determined, they found themselves caught in a trap, a vice, unable to regain their mobility. The prefecture did not make the same mistake as the day before. On Saturday, a third call to gather in the same square convinced the authorities to ban all gatherings in an area stretching from the Champs Élysées to the Louvre, from the Grands Boulevards to the rue de Sèvres—in other words, across about a quarter of Paris around the Presidential Palace of the Elysée and the National Assembly. Thousands of police officers stationed in the area were able to prevent the beginning of any gathering by harassing passersby. On the other side of the city, a gathering at Place d’Italie took the police deployment in stride and started a spontaneous demonstration in the opposite direction. Mobile groups were able to block the streets for several hours, setting fire to garbage cans and temporarily escaping the BRAV-M.
The ABCs of strategy are that tactics should not clash, but should compose. The Paris prefecture has already presented its battle narrative: responsible but harmless mass demonstrations on one side, nightly riots led by radical and illegitimate fringes on the other. Anyone who has been in the streets this past week knows how much this caricature is a lie and how important it is to keep it that way. For this is their ultimate weapon: to divide the revolt into good and bad, responsible and uncontrollable. Solidarity is their worst nightmare. If the movement gains intensity, the trade union processions will end up being attacked and, consequently, defending themselves. The surprise blockades of the beltways by CGT groups [Confédération Générale du Travail, a national trade union] indicate that a part of the base is already determined to go beyond the rituals. When the police intervened in Fos-sur-Mer on Monday to enforce the prefect’s orders, the unionized workers escalated to confrontation. The more that the actions multiply, the more that the grip of the police will loosen. Gérald Darmanin mentioned that there have been more than 1200 spontaneous demonstrations over the past few days.

“Power Is Logistical—Let’s Block Everything”
Beyond its own violence, the effectiveness of the police also lies in its power of diversion. By determining the place, the form, and the time of confrontation, it saps the energy of the movement. If we bet on disorder and the threat it poses to the government to compel Macron to give up on extending working hours, the blockade is crucial. Indeed, no one will wait indefinitely for the general strike of a working class and a labor movement eroded by 30 years of neoliberalism; the most obvious, spontaneous, and effective political gesture is now the blocking of economic flows, the interruption of the normal flow of goods and humans.

What has been organized in Rennes for two weeks can serve as an example. Rather than confronting the police as their primary objective, the people of Rennes have set up semi-public assemblies in which blocking actions are conceived. This Monday at dawn, a call for “dead cities” saw hundreds of people spread over several points of the city come to block the main roads and the Rennes ring road. Two weeks earlier, 300 people set fire to garbage cans in the middle of the night, blocking the street of Lorient until the early morning. The challenge is never to confront the police but to take them by surprise, to become stealthy. Even from the point of view of those who only swear by numbers and are still waiting for the general strike, this multiplication of blocking points and disorder is obvious. If, after the explosion in response to use of article 49.3 last Thursday, there had only been the call [from official union leadership] to demonstrate the following Thursday, everyone would have resigned themselves to a last stand and defeat. The blockades and the diffuse disorder have inspired the courage, confidence, and impetus the movement needed to project itself beyond the deadlines determined behind the doors of the union leaders.


Occupy to Meet and Organize
The collapse of classical politics along with its parties and its disillusionment has opened the way to innovative autonomous experiments. The movement against the labor law, Nuit Debout [a movement in 2016], the Yellow Vests, les Soulèvements de la Terre [the uprisings of the earth, a recent series of environmental mobilizations using mass direct action], and many others have confirmed in recent years that not only was there nothing left to expect from representation, but that nobody wanted it anymore.

Each of these sequences would deserve a thorough analysis of its strengths and weaknesses, but we will stick to one basic fact: undoing power implies inventing new forms, and for that, in the atomization of the metropolis, we need places to meet, think, and act from. For decades, the occupation of buildings, university campuses, or other places has been part of the obvious practices of any movement. A university president who accepted the intervention of the police on his campus was immediately condemned, as it was taken for granted that the collective and participatory reappropriation of space was the minimum response to the privatization of all spaces and the policing of public space.

It is clear that today, no occupation is tolerated. If, as people have done in Rennes, one takes over an abandoned cinema to transform it into a Maison du Peuple [“house of the people”] where trade unionists, activists, and locals meet, the socialist mayor of the city evicts it within 48 hours, sending hundreds of police officers. As for the universities, their authorities shamelessly invoke the risks of disorder and the possibility of distance learning to close them administratively or send the police against their own students. On the other hand, all this underscores how important it is to have places where we can meet and organize ourselves, how much they can increase what we are capable of. In Paris, an occupation of the Bourse du Travail [labor union hall] was attempted after a boisterous assembly and a spontaneous banquet beneath the glass roof of the workers’ movement. However, it withered away in the night, due to the indecision or incomprehension of the unions and autonomous rebels. We need places to build connection and solidarity and we need connection and solidarity to hold places. The story of the chicken and the egg.

In Rennes, the movement temporarily overcame the problem: once evacuated, the participants in the Maison du Peuple met in broad daylight and continued to organize blockades as well as meetings—presumably while waiting to be sufficiently united and strong to take back a place with roof, running water, and heating. In Paris, the limits that the Nuit Debout experiment reached seem to have foreclosed the possibility of meeting outdoors. The caricature that lingers would have it that open-air discussions only produce monologues without beginning or end. However, we remember the aperitif at Valls’2 and the possibility, even from our self-centered metropolitan solitude, to make the decision at the drop of a hat to rush to the Prime Minister’s house with several thousand people. The fact that the government is so intent on leaving us without meeting points shows how urgent it is to establish them.


Towards Infinity and Beyond
As we have said, the contours of the movement are becoming pre-insurrectional. Every day, the blockades multiply, the actions intensify. Thursday will therefore be decisive. From the point of view of the reform, if the demonstrations on Thursday get out of control, Macron will be cornered. Either he will take the risk of a black Saturday3 everywhere in the country—that is to say, the Yellow-Vestification that he fears above all—or he will back down on Friday, invoking the risk of significant uncontrollable outbursts.

Everything is at stake now, and more. The left is waiting in ambush, ready to sell an electoral loophole, the illusion of a referendum, or even the construction of the 4th International—whatever it takes to call for patience and a return to normal. For the movement to endure and avoid cooptation as well as repression, it will have to confront as soon as possible the question that is central to any uprising: how to organize itself. And undoubtedly, some people are already thinking and talking about how to live communism and spread anarchy.


Further Resources
Strategic reflections on the spontaneous demonstrations of March 18 in Paris
A comprehensive list of solidarity funds all over the country
Anti-repression solidarity fund
Notes:
1.↩ A reference to “the best form of defense is attack,” the original text puns on the similarity between the French words for “retreat” and “retirement.”
2.↩ On April 9, 2016, during a general assembly, participants in the Nuit Debout movement decided to invite themselves to the home of Prime Minister Manuel Valls for an aperitif. A month later, on May 10, 2016, facing an unruly social movement, Valls announced that he had decided to invoke article 49:3 of the Constitution in order to implement the unpopular Loi Travail [labor law] without a vote in the National Assembly—a precedent for the current crisis.
3.↩ Starting on December 1, 2018, the Yellow Vest movement repeatedly mobilized on Saturdays, disrupting urban areas.

https://mronline.org/2023/03/25/the-mov ... on-reform/

Many videos at link.

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Unrest In France Postpones King Charles' State Visit

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The French president said, suggested a postponement to the state visit of British King Charles III to France for early summer. Mar. 24, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@RoyalRundown1

"The King and Queen consort's state visit to France has been postponed," Buckingham Palace said.


British King Charles III's state visit to France, scheduled for Sunday, has been postponed as unrest continues against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform.

"The King and Queen consort's state visit to France has been postponed. Their Majesties look forward with great interest to the opportunity to visit France as soon as dates can be found," a statement from Buckingham Palace said.

President Macron called for the cancellation of the three-day visit amid the current situation in France, with strikes and protests across the country.

"As we have considerable friendship, respect and esteem for Her Majesty and the Queen Consort and the British people, I took the initiative this morning to call [the King] and explain the situation," the French president said, suggesting a postponement to early summer.


Government plans to gradually push back the retirement age by two years, to 64, have plunged the country into a violent scenario that has been exacerbated by last week's passage, without a vote, of the pension law in Parliament.

Thursday's riots resulted in 457 arrests by the forces of law and order. The French capital, Paris, and the cities of Rennes, Nantes, Lorient, and Bordeaux were the main scene of the riots.

A new national strike day has been announced for Tuesday next week, the tenth so far.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Unr ... -0019.html

457 French Jailed In Paris Over Rallies Against Pension Reform

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A protester sets garbage cans on fire, France. | Photo: Twitter/ @ForbesEurope

Published 24 March 2023

A recent poll showed that almost 70 percent of the citizens reject President Macron’s pension reform proposal, which intends to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.


On Thursday, 457 French citizens were arrested in Paris during demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s approval of his pension reform bill by decree.

Some of these citizens burned about 1,000 garbage containers, which became a symbol of these protests after garbage collectors went on strike for several weeks. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, however, stressed that most demonstrators did not use violence and thanked trade unions for organizing the protests so well.

On Thursday, about 3,5 million citizens took to the streets of some 300 cities to reject the pension reform bill. The strikes caused disruptions to public transport and the closure of schools and universities.

The French government postponed the official visit of U.K. King Charles, who was going to travel to France on Sunday. "It would not be serious receiving such a visitor amid protests," Macron stated, hoping that more demonstrations do not occur.

Image

French unions called citizens to participate in a new mass demonstration on Monday. “We need to show our determination to achieve the withdrawal of the reform," they said.

A poll conducted by the French Public Opinion Institute (FIFG) showed that almost 70 percent of French citizens reject Macron’s pension reform proposal, which intends to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 and bring forward to 2027 the requirement to contribute 43 years to obtain a full pension.

In Athens, hundreds of Greek citizens gathered outside the French embassy to express their solidarity with the workers in France.

Demonstrators shouted slogans and carried banners reading: "Macron, your democracy hangs by nine votes" and "From Greece: victory for the workers of France."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/457 ... -0006.html
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:50 pm

France: Over 1 Million People Participate in Protests Against Pension Reform
MARCH 26, 2023

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Trash cans burning in Paris, France, as protests continue in the country against the government's pension reform. Photo: AP/Jean-Francois Badias.

Over one million people participated in demonstrations against the pension reform bill across France, according to the French Interior Ministry, while unions give the estimate at over three million.

The Interior Ministry said 1.089 million demonstrators took to the streets in France on Thursday, March 23, double the number present at the previous manifestation on March 15; however, it was less than at the demonstrations on January 19, 31 and March 7, the French media reported. Then, the number of protesters reportedly amounted to around 1.2 million.

However, France’s largest union, CGT, reported that a record 3.5 million people took part in the protests across the whole country.

The Paris demonstrations gathered around 120,000 people, according to the police, while according to the union, 800,000 people participated.

Clashes between black bloc radicals and law enforcement officers broke out in the French capital during today’s protests. A Sputnik correspondent reported that the police used tear gas to disperse protesters who managed to reach the Place de la Republique, demanding the area be cleared through loudspeakers. A water cannon was also seen at the scene.

As of Thursday evening, 80 people were detained across France, and some 120 police officers were injured, French Interior Ministry said.


Moreover, during a demonstration in the city of Rouen, a 40-year-old woman had her thumb blown off by a grenade, local media reported. Her injuries were seen to by medical workers. The report said the injured woman was a college teacher and had two children.

In the southwestern city of Bordeux protests and clashes saw fire engulf the front door of the city’s town hall building. Although it remained unclear who exactly ignited the flames, the blaze was later extinguished by officials.


France’s leading unions announced that the 10th nationwide protest against the pension reform would take place on March 28, according to local TV.

Later in the day, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne commented on clashes between the demonstrators and police.

“The violence and damage we saw today are unacceptable. I am grateful to the police and emergency services that were mobilized,” Borne said on Twitter.


On March 16, Borne announced that the government had adopted a law on raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 by invoking Article 49.3 of the constitution, which allowed the bill to get passed without parliamentary approval. The decision sparked a strong backlash, prompting people to take to the streets across the country.

The opposition tried to prevent the adoption of the law on Monday through a vote of no confidence in the French government, but failed to secure an absolute majority in the parliament twice.

There have been several nationwide strikes and hundreds of demonstrations in France within the last two months, with over 1 million people taking part in most of them. During the protests, clashes often broke out between the police and the protesters.

https://orinocotribune.com/france-over- ... on-reform/

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France lives another day of marches against pension reform

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Hundreds of people protested Monday in front of the Louvre museum against the reform of the pension system. | Photo: EFE
Published 28 March 2023

The leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor proposed on Tuesday to seek mediation on the pension reform.

Thousands of French will mobilize this Tuesday in the main cities of the country in a new day of protests against the pension reform promoted by President Emmanuel Macron.

This would be the tenth mobilization called by the main unions of the French country that demand the suspension of the reform to the pension system, which was approved by the French government without completing the legislative process.

The union centrals request the withdrawal of the project that increases the retirement age to 64 years by 2030 and advances to 2027 the requirement to contribute 43 years to collect a full pension.


The leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), proposed on Tuesday to seek mediation on the pension reform.

"The 64-year-old measure must be suspended" and for a period that could be a month or a month and a half seek "mediation" so that the Government and the unions can sit around a table to negotiate on work, Laurent Berger said in an interview with the France Inter station.


Laurent Berger argued that the unions will not sit down with representatives of Emmanuel Macron, if they do not plan to discuss the reform of the pension system.

In the early hours of this Tuesday there have been delays in public transport in the capital and the train service nationwide.

Image

The day of protests last Thursday left at least 457 protesters detained by the police authorities.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/francia- ... -0008.html

Google Translator

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Gonfreville Refinery Shutdown In France

Published 27 March 2023

The 240 000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery supplies the entire Ile-de-France region.

French energy company TotalEnergies' Gonfreville refinery has halted operations amid ongoing protests in France against pension reform.

The 240 000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery supplies the entire Ile-de-France region and provides fuel to the main airports in the capital.

The strike actions have affected the sector, with fuel shortages at gas stations, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, electricity supply and nuclear reactor maintenance impacted.

According to Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, last week there were disruptions at around 15 percent of French gas stations, while 10 fuel depots suffered blockades.


Here is the strike fund of the refiners and petrochemists of the Total Normandy platform. It will be necessary that we hold in the duration I invite you to make widely turn this link.

Refinery workers have continued strike actions after fuel deliveries resumed on Friday following police intervention to disperse workers holding a blockade.

"Since January 19, 2023, the workers of the Normandy platform are engaged in the fight against Macron's new pension reform," reads the Total Normandy platform's strike fund.

It also says that "refiners and petrochemicals have always supported and fought with struggle the various government attacks against our social gains," while calling for support "so that we can lead the struggle again."



The European nation has been experiencing large protests since last January against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, which involves raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

The bill has been adopted despite a nationwide opposition movement, with the executive activating Article 49.3 of the Constitution to bypass the parliamentary vote.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Gon ... -0013.html
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 29, 2023 2:15 pm

The French Keep on Protesting Despite Police Brutality

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The sign reads, "Ruled by parasites," Paris, France, March 28, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @realmarcel1

Published 28 March 2023 (21 hours 49 minutes ago)

During the tenth day of protest against the Macron's pension reform, the spirits of the French continue to burn throughout the country.


On Tuesday, thousands of French citizens continued to stage protests against the pension reform proposal that President Emmanuel Macron persists in imposing by force.

"France is not ruled by sticks... As most people say, this is all madness," said Senator Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is also the historical leader of the leftist organization "Unsubmissive France."

He made reference to the refusal of the Macron administration to accept the "mediation" proposed by the leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger, who seeks a dialogue to "find a way out" of the prevailing social crisis.

“Making proposals was useful... However, this government wants nothing except to force its bill,” Melenchon recalled and mentioned Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

“Her attitude leaves us with only one possibility and slogan: 'Let her go!,' the Unsubmissive France leader concluded.


The tweet reads, "This is not happening to protect order. This is a bunch of thugs beating us up so other thugs can rob us. Macron hurts France and the French. We will judge him."

During the tenth day of protest against the Macron's pension reform, the spirits of the French continue to burn throughout the country.

On Tuesday morning, the police violently attacked a citizens' march in Nantes, which sparked a spiral of indignation that left a bank branch on fire and attacks on an administrative court.

In Rennes, where some 22,000 people took to the streets, the first clashes with the police appeared at the beginning of the afternoon after a relatively calm morning.

The police used a water cannon and tear gas against the French, who improvised umbrellas and shields during their march. People set street furniture on fire and threw stones at the police.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/The ... -0009.html

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The Macron Administration Lashes Out at Environmental Activists

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Earth Uprisings rally against Monsento-Bayer, Trebes, France, March 5, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @AnguilleBleue

Published 28 March 2023 (19 hours 45 minutes ago)

The verbal attack against environmental rights defenders comes amid a display of unprecedented police brutality.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that he has initiated proceedings to dissolve the environmental group Earth Uprisings (Les Soulèvements de la Terre).

President Emmanuel Macron's administration accuses environmental activists of having provoked violent actions on Saturday during a demonstration in Saint-Souline against artificial dams for agricultural irrigation.

Citing intelligence reports, Darmanin asserted that the Earth Uprisings members are far-left activists who are responsible for corporate invasions, actions against law enforcement, destruction of property, and calls for insurrection.

In the protests on Saturday, however, Les Soulèvements de la Terre activists were the ones who denounced the actions of the police against the French citizens.

"Police violence has been terrifying due to its brutality. We have registered no less than 200 people injured," they said, denying what the Macron administration maintains.

Image

The tweet reads, "Call to meet in front of the country's prefectures on Thursday, March 30. In support of two comatose protesters who were injured in Sainte Soline and the movement against pension reform, and for an end to police brutality".

"Chaos is trying to set in," the Interior Minister said, accusing environmental activists of trying to "bring the Republic to its knees" because their enemy "is not pension reform or the government but the institutions."

The verbal attack against the French environmental activists, however, comes amid a display of police brutality that the Macron administration is normalizing as part of daily life.

"Darmanin's speech calling us 'eco-terrorists' shocked and massified the movement. After that... we have created strong links with struggles in neighboring countries," activist Lena Lazare she said in an interview published in Rapports de Force, a social outlet which denounced that two people were seriously injured as a result of police actions.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/The ... -0012.html

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Violent demonstrations continue in France over pension reform

Macron's advisers are said to urge him to enter into discussions with union leaders to find some compromise. However, up to now the French President remains arrogant and unyielding. Meanwhile, the mass demonstrations continue and violence continues to erupt, notwithstanding the moderating words of the nominal organizers of the demonstrations.

As I note in this discussion of the situation on Iran's Press TV, should we see such confrontations in countries outside Europe, the scale and violence of the demonstrations in France would immediately suggest the possible involvement of foreign influencers. Indeed yesterday's Figaro makes mention of foreigners among the 1,000 or so radicals who are behind the rock throwing, arson and attacks directed against the police. The question naturally turns on who could possibly be interested in regime change in France.

For its part, the Financial Times has in the past week speculated on the end of the Fifth Republic as a possible outcome to the ongoing conflict. As they note, for some time there has been no one of sufficient stature to fulfill the oversized role of the President set down in a constitution made expressly for General De Gaulle when he took power. Why France has repeatedly in this century elected nonentities as President is something I recently discussed when looking at US interventions in the French electoral process.

In these live interviews, you are lucky to have your wits sufficiently organized to make all your points. In this instance, I overlooked one further failure of Macron's team when he wrote the pension reform: it would have been much more palatable if there were a long phase-in period, say 10 years. However, Macron opted for a brutal attack on labor, and that all by itself contributed to the inflamed passions we see today.



©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/03/29/ ... on-reform/
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:29 pm

France ready for new riots police claim
By JULIAN SHEA in London | China Daily Global | Updated: 2023-03-29 09:17

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A car burns during clashes between demonstrators and riot-police on the sidelines of a demonstration after the government pushed a pensions reform, in Nantes, western France, on March 28, 2023. [Photo/Agencies]

As many as 13,000 police were deployed across France on Tuesday for the 10th day of nationwide protests and demonstrations in the increasingly bitter and bad tempered dispute over President Emmanuel Macron's highly divisive attempts to reform the country's pension system.

The larger than usual police presence comes after the most recent day of action, last week, saw confrontations that ended with 441 members of the security forces being injured and 457 arrests, and the town hall being set on fire in the city of Bordeaux.

In the aftermath of the violent protests, a planned visit by Britain's King Charles III was postponed, and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the increasingly angry tone of the protests meant that there was a "very serious risk to public order" at the latest ones, hence the high-profile police presence.

He said it was feared that more than 1,000 of what he called "radical "troublemakers, some from overseas, could join the protests, and hijack them for their own purposes that were not related to the original cause of the dispute.

"They come to destroy, to injure and to kill police officers and gendarmes," he continued. "Their goals have nothing to do with the pension reform. Their goals are to destabilize our republican institutions and bring blood and fire down on France."

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told radio station France Inter that his forces were being "very vigilant "ahead of the protests.

"We are talking about individuals who are often monitored by intelligence services ... and we are very vigilant about their presence," he said.

Laurent Berger, the head of France's largest union, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, or CFDT, said the focus on the threat of violence was a distraction from the real issues that were motivating so many people to take action.

"What angers me is that this violence, which I condemn ... overshadows the formidable mobilization which has been overwhelmingly peaceful," he said.

After the violence at the most recent protests, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tweeted: "To demonstrate and make one's grievances heard is a right. The violence and destruction that we have seen today are unacceptable."

The reforms will see the retirement age raised from 62 to 64, and were pushed through Parliament after Macron had looked on course to lose a vote on the issue, a move which prompted heavy criticism.

"We must redouble our protests and blockades," said left-wing politician and former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. "In France, there is a sense of a drift toward authoritarianism; many people are beginning to say it is going too far now."

While the focus of attention has been on major cities, the France 24 news website reported that strikes and protests were also attracting significant support in smaller regional towns, showing the extent of the opposition to the reforms, which Macron insists are necessary to prevent a future funding crisis.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b7211.html

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Pension reform or Revolution! Crisis for the French Fifth Republic?

The controversial pension reforms, which will increase the retirement age in the country from 62 to 64, are detested by the French working class and have led to widespread protests

March 29, 2023 by Muhammed Shabeer

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Mobilization in Lille. (Photo: via L’insoumission)

Major trade unions in France estimate that two million people hit the streets across France on Tuesday, March 28, denouncing the controversial pension reforms pushed by Emmanuel Macron’s government. The reforms were forcibly passed in the National Assembly on March 16 using Article 49.3 to bypass the parliamentary vote. The move has further weakened the legitimacy of the reforms, already detested by the majority of the French working class. While the government, headed by President Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, narrowly survived a no-confidence vote on March 20, the approval rating of the president has plummeted along with political ‘good will’ for his neo-liberal Renaissance (RE) party, as anger against the anti-worker pension reforms rages across the country.

The pension reforms, proposed by the government on January 10, increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 and stipulates a mandatory 43 years of service for entitlement to full pension and benefits. The groundbreaking mobilizations and work stoppages on Tuesday marked the tenth major action since January 19, and trade unions reiterated their demand for the withdrawal of the reforms. Left-wing opposition groups are also gearing up toward a national referendum on the issue. The coalition of trade unions has called for larger mobilization and strikes on April 6 as well.

The government has shown no leniency towards the protesters and unleashed security forces to quell the protests.

Trade unions, including the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), have condemned the government’s insensitivity towards mediation with the unions, as well as Macron’s outright refusal to roll back the reforms.

The French Communist Party’s (PCF) Ian Brossat expressed confidence that the government will eventually be forced to roll back the reforms, succumbing to protests. Meanwhile, legislators from the leftist coalition New Ecologic and Social Peoples Union (NUPES) are waiting for the Constitutional Council’s decision on their request for a Referendum of Shared Initiative (RIP) on the implementation of the pension reforms. The NUPES coalition—comprising the socialists from La France Insoumise (LFI), communists from the PCF, social democrats from the Socialist Party (PS), and the Greens—has the parliamentary strength required to initiate a referendum, and is also confident of collecting the officially required number of signatures—a tenth of the voters, or 4.87 million—within nine months to conduct the referendum.

Addressing the media on March 27, NUPES leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said, “the French and foreign press as well as a number of international institutions are well aware of what is happening in France,” claiming that “this is more reminiscent of the workings of an authoritarian regime than that of a democracy with authority.”

The legacy and popularity of the 64-year-old French Fifth Republic is dipping to historic lows day by day, as the Macron government continues to remain insensitive towards the workers’ demands and unleashes the state security forces to crack down on protests. Macron’s Renaissance (RE) party lacks a majority in the parliament and his own re-election in 2022 was helped by the fact that his opponent was far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The threat of a far-right victory in France helped consolidate Macron’s votes.

In his first tenure as president, Macron’s supporters had an outright majority in the National Assembly. However, even then, he was forced to roll back a hike in fuel taxes—arbitrarily imposed in November 2018 to combat climate change—after the massive Yellow Vests protests.

An earlier avatar of the pension reforms—on the same lines of the current one—had been proposed by Macron in December 2019 during his first tenure, but was dropped midway due to massive protests from the working class and the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.

The motion of no-confidence against the current government, supported by leftists and voted upon on March 20, fell short of just nine votes in the National Assembly. According to reports, the motion was also supported by over a dozen MPs from the conservative The Republicans (LR). However, the majority of the MPs from the pro-government bloc, including LR, voted against the motion.

Borne had invoked Article 49.3 in the National Assembly on March 16 and bypassed voting on the pension reforms. The government had rightly sensed that if a vote took place, especially on the clause for ‘amending financing of Social Security for 2023’ that calls to raise the retirement age, more MPs from the pro-government bloc would have voted against it, effectively thwarting Macron’s goal of bringing the budget deficit below 3% by the end of his second term in 2027, by capping and slashing social pending.

Invoking of Article 49.3 and unleashing the police at protests has dealt a huge blow to Macron’s standing. He has already been criticized for pushing the notorious Global Security Bill in 2021, granting more autonomy to riot police in their actions. The bypassing of the parliamentary vote on the pension reforms also exposes the disproportionate and ‘undemocratic’ power relations between the president and the parliament, and marks the deterioration of the semi-presidential or dual-executive system envisaged by the Fifth Republic in France since 1958.

If Macron heeds the voices of workers and rolls back the reforms, the protests may stop. Macron may not be right in thinking that the ongoing protests will gradually wither away like the Yellow Vest protests, which were largely organized without a leadership and with participation primarily from middle class sections.

If Macron remains adamant in implementing the reforms, the trade unions and the united French Left in the NUPES coalition have shown their will and resolve to fight the reform on the streets. There is massive popular support for initiating and conducting a referendum on the retirement age.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/03/29/ ... -republic/
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 02, 2023 5:59 pm

The French Uprising
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 1, 2023
Frederic Lordon

Image

On Monday, 20 March, the homepages of the French national news sites were overcome with excitement as they reported on the vote of no-confidence in the government: tallying how deputies were likely to cast their ballots, assessing the motion’s chances, envisioning the wheeling and dealing, playing the insider – what a delight. Political journalism: a passport for political inanity.

Meanwhile, politics, with all its sudden force, has seized the country. Spontaneous events erupt on all sides: unannounced walkouts, road blockages, riotous outbursts and demonstrations, assemblies of student activists; youthful energy fills the Place de la Concorde, the streets. Everyone feels as if they are walking on hot coals, impatience coursing through their legs – but not on account of the trivialities which continue to occupy the Parisian goldfish bowl, its inhabitants each more ignorant than the next about what we’re now reaching: boiling point.

It’s beautiful what happens when the ruling order starts to unravel. Small but incredible things occur that shatter the resigned isolation and atomization on which the powerful rely. Here, farmers bring bags of vegetables to striking rail workers; there, a Lebanese restaurant owner hands out falafels to kettled protestors; students join pickets; soon, we’ll see individuals opening their doors to hide demonstrators from the police. The real movement has begun. We can already say that the situation is pre-revolutionary. What are its prospects? Might the ‘pre-’ be shaken off?

In France, the legitimacy of the power structure has collapsed; it is now nothing more than a coercive bloc. Having demolished all other mediations, the autocrat is separated from the people only by a police line. Nothing can be ruled out, for reason deserted him long ago.

Macron has never accepted otherness. He is in conversation only with himself; the outside world does not exist. That is why his speech – if we focus on the real meaning of his words – bears no trace of the collective validation that comes from rational discussion with others. On 3 June 2022, he could affirm, without batting an eyelid, that ‘the French are tired of reforms that come from above’; on 29 September that ‘the citizen is not someone on whom decisions will be imposed’. Isn’t it obvious that, confronted with a leader of this kind, there can be no possibility of dialogue? That nothing he says can ever be taken seriously? Such a person is incapable of owning up to any error save factitious ones, since you have to listen to the ‘outside’, to the non-self, to realise that you’ve made a mistake. This is why Macron’s promises of ‘reinvention’ – so enchanting to journalists – can be nothing other than pantomimes, produced in closed circuit.

For the despot, left to his own devices by political institutions that were always potentially – and are now actually – liberticidal, all forms of violence are foreseeable. Anything can happen; indeed, everything is happening. The footage of kettling on the rue Montorgueil this Sunday sends a clear signal that Macronian politics are in the process of dissolving. From now on, power governs by roundup. The police will cart off and arrest anyone, including passers-by with no connection to the protest, scared men and women, stupefied by what is happening to them. A single message: don’t go out in the street, stay home, watch TV, obey.

Here, the unconscious deal between the police and its recruits comes into view: an agreement between an institution dedicated to violence and individuals searching for legal sanction for their own violent impulses. A pre-revolutionary situation presents an unequalled opportunity, when power can cling on only by force, when acts of force acquire disproportionate significance – as well as a carte blanche. As we saw during the gilets jaunes, now is the time of sadists, of brutes in uniform.

In this context, the slogan ‘la police avec nous!’ is entirely obsolete, no longer has a chance: it rested on the illusion of objective social proximity, a vulgar materialism of ‘shared interests’, which is now overridden by the libidinal sway of authorized violence. This is how a structure produces its effects, and an order satisfies its needs: it travels by relay through the psyches of its chosen functionaries, from Macron at the top right down to the last police thug in the street.

Counterforces protect us, however, from descent into tyranny, or more plainly, from being crushed by the cops. It is possible that some remnant of morality, some notion of tipping points and limits, still lingers within the state apparatus – though certainly not in Ministry of the Interior, which has been entirely overrun by pox, and where a quasi-fascist minister reigns supreme. But perhaps in the cabinets, in the ‘entourages’ where, at any moment, an awareness of political transgression, an anxiety about committing an irreparable act, might develop. Yet, as we know, it’s better not to count on hypotheses that require a leap of virtue (a secular form of miracle), all the more so given the corruption, moral as much as financial, that blights the ‘exemplary republic’.

The excessive actions of the police might yet produce a more material counterforce. Not in the heat of a few localised battles – without the development of specialist tactics, these are probably hopeless – but in the country as a whole. If, somewhere in the Ministry of the Interior, there is a ‘big board’ in the style of Dr Strangelove, it must be twinkling like a Christmas tree – covered only in red. The police could just about hold out during the gilets jaunes because these protests took place in a limited number of cities at a rate of once a week. Now they are all over France and every day. The marvellous power of numbers – they horrify the powerful everywhere. Fatigue is already visible behind the visors. But as yet the thugs haven’t finished racking up kilometres in their paddy wagons. What is needed are fireworks, so that the tree becomes nothing more than a huge garland and the big board blows a fuse. Exhaustion of the police: a nerve centre for the movement.

There is, finally, a resource of another order: hatred of the police – insofar as it is a driving force. When power lets loose its henchmen, two radically different results can follow: intimidation, or the tenfold multiplication of rage. Upheavals occur when the first mutates into the second. There are many reasons to believe we’ve reached this stage. Antipathy towards the police promises to attain hitherto unknown breadths and depths. Yet Macron sticks with them; ipso facto, hatred of the them is converted into hatred of him. At present, we don’t yet know how he will end up – the best-case scenario would doubtless be in a helicopter.

Is it increasingly apparent that by dint of wanting to occupy the throne, to hoard all the glory, Macron has tied himself to the retirement law and the police – such that, by metonymy, he has become the living synthesis of all these particular hatreds: ultimately their sole object. By another metonymic twist, as much as by structural necessity, he likewise clings to the ‘capitalist order’. So the question on the agenda is now: how to put an end to ‘Macron-the-capitalist-order’. That is to say, a revolutionary question.

The question posed can be revolutionary without the situation necessarily being so. History has shown that there are two possible tendencies here: waiting until such a situation forms ‘by itself’, or actively helping it into existence – not without difficulty, perhaps, but with possible assistance from rhythms which, in certain conjunctures, can undergo dazzling accelerations. In any case, we won’t move from the ‘pre-revolutionary’ present to the ‘revolutionary’ future simply through the negative force of refusal. An affirmation is also necessary, a galvanizing reason ‘for’ that unifies the opposition. What could it be? The answer must be equal to the country’s ongoing uprising, even if the form of that uprising remains undefined. For an insurrection to develop into a means, not an end, for it to become a truly revolutionary process, it must be able to formulate a positive political desire in which the majority can recognise itself. You don’t have to look for too long to find one. In reality it’s all we know: to take care of our own business, beginning with production. The positive political desire, opposed by capitalism and bourgeois political institutions on point of principle, is that of sovereignty.

Sovereignty of the producers over production – here is a slogan with appeal, and well beyond the working class, those most directly concerned. Because, increasingly, those we call ‘white-collar workers’ also suffer from managerial stultification, from the blind control of shareholders, from the idiocy if not toxicity of their bosses’ choices. They aspire – a tremendous aspiration – to have a say on all that which has been taken from them.

Legitimacy, and consequently sovereignty, belongs only to those who do the work. As for those who, despite their complete ignorance, nevertheless claim to organize the work of others – consultants and planners – they are nothing but parasites and must be driven out. The ultimate, irrefutable argument for the sovereignty of workers has been made by one trade unionist, Eric Lietchi of the Paris Energy branch of the CGT. The facts speak for themselves, as Lietchi observes: under the management of the parasite class, the country has been destroyed. The legal system is in ruins, education is in ruins, universities and research are in ruins, hospitals are in ruins as is the pharmaceutical supply – apothecaries are enjoined to cook up amoxycillin in the back of their shops. Last autumn, wrote Borne, the country could only hope that ‘by the grace of God’ it wouldn’t get so cold that the electricity grid, in ruins like everything else, might collapse over the winter. Teachers were hired in thirty-minute ‘flash recruitment’ drives. Civil servants were seconded as bus drivers – will stints as train drivers be next? And, amid all this, people are going hungry. One wouldn’t have thought it possible to write such a thing today but, here we are: a quarter of French people don’t get enough to eat. Young people are hungry. There are endless queues at foodbanks. Between this deprivation and the actions of police, if France 2 were to produce a programme on the ‘big picture’, without revealing the country in which it was filmed, a solidarity something-or-other would be organised in an instant – Binoche would cut off a lock of hair and Glücksmann pen a column – for these unfortunates on the other side of the world.

In the space of a few decades, and especially since 2017, an entire social model has been brought to its knees. They have brought the country to its knees. Not the CGT, not the Intersyndicale (if only) – they and they alone have done this. The country has been ruined by the competent. It is in a state of total disorganization. As we know, to oust the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie promoted university degrees and meritocratic symbols as replacements for blood and lineage. Hence a paradox (of which there are many) within late capitalism: the incompetence of the bourgeoise has itself become a historical force, one which a minimal amendment to Schumpeter allows us to identify: destructive destruction. Or, to give it its proper name: McKinsey.

Here is where Lietchi’s argument acquires its fullest significance. Because the idea of workers’ sovereignty, usually dismissed as belonging to a dreamworld, now emerges as the logical consequence of an irrefutable analysis, whose conclusion is equally trenchant: we must get rid of these imbecilic pests and take back the totality of production. They didn’t know how to run it? The workers will – they already know. We could ask ourselves, what is the real meaning given to the phrase ‘general strike’? Not a general stoppage of work, but an initial act of the general reappropriation of tools – the beginning of workers’ sovereignty.

It is at this moment that the event signals its unprecedented power, even if, for the time being, that power resides only in the imagination. Incredible to imagine the effect on the physiognomy of companies when they are returned to the hands of their employees. Incredible to imagine the reorganization of public services when they are directed by those who know how to maintain and control the railway tracks, how to teach others to do so safely, how to drive the trains, how to signal, how to deliver the post while having time to talk to people. Incredible to imagine universities open to the public, the emancipation of art from the bourgeois artist and its capitalist sponsors. Incredible to imagine the collapse of the bourgeoisie, the historic condemnation of its characteristic mixture of arrogance and stupidity: unable to do anything itself, it only ever had things done for it.

We can agree, of course, that we’ll need to be armed with more than just imagination – so much the better. But such imaginative scenarios do, at least, focus the mind. They give it a common direction, one derived from the political question that must be applied in all situations: who decides? The question is itself derived from a specific principle: all those concerned have a right to decide. This principle itself marks a watershed. The bourgeoisie believe that only they are competent enough to make decisions. CNews, which acts as their mouthpiece, is fully aware of the current peril: ‘Should we fear a return to communism?’ asks an anguished chyron. They are wise, no doubt unintentionally, to wonder – since ‘communism’ is correctly understood as the opposing party, the party of all, the party of general sovereignty, the party of equality.

The extraordinary uprising of the gilets jaunes never, to its disfavour, addressed the salary question. As for the official voices tasked with posing this question, cogs installed in the warm centre of the system, they have never ceased to depoliticize, transforming it into a mere matter of collective agreements. With and under such enlightened leadership we subscribed to defeat.

But now, in the space of two months, everything has changed. The forms of struggle diversify and complement each other: we can no longer separate the Thursday protests, massive but in vain, from the undeclared protests that keep the police on the run until the end of the night. The substance of class struggle is flowing into the mould of the gilets jaunes. It is an unprecedented combination, so long awaited; this time, astounding.

An earlier version of this essay appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/04/ ... -uprising/

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They investigate cases of police violence in protests in France

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The French Interior Minister defended the security forces and accused the protesters of also resorting to violent acts against the forces of order. | Photo: EFE
Posted 2 April 2023 (9 hours 30 minutes ago)

The UN special rapporteur and the Council of Europe expressed concern about the use of force by the French police.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in an interview on Sunday that police forces have launched at least 38 investigations into accusations of excessive police force during the crackdown on popular mobilizations in the French country.

According to his statements to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Darmanin affirmed that the internal control body of the police has initiated "36 judicial investigations" while another two corresponding to the equivalent unit in the gendarmerie corps are open.

"Our hand has never trembled towards those who dishonor their own uniform," stressed the minister in the face of increased criticism for "police violence" in protests against pension reform or against the construction of a dam in the west of the country.


The official recalled that 111 police officers and gendarmes were prosecuted in 2021 for "disproportionate use of force" while 101 were tried for the same reason in 2020.

In the midst of the wave of protests and the repression unleashed by the police forces in France, lawyers' unions, left-wing parties, the Ombudsman and NGOs have warned about the excesses of police action.

The UN special rapporteur and the European Council expressed concern about the use of force by the French police.


"I understand the criticism, but I encourage their authors to come to the field instead of commenting on extracts from videos from New York or Brussels," the minister replied in the interview.

At another point in the interview, the minister defended the security forces and accused the protesters of also resorting to violent acts against the forces of order.


The official especially highlighted the protests over the construction of a dam in Sainte-Soline, which led to a pitched battle. "In Sainte-Soline, as in certain wild demonstrations, it's not about maintaining order, it's about guerrilla warfare," the minister said.

Darmanin assured that 1,093 security agents have been injured since March 16 and reaffirmed his “Total support for the police and gendarmes in the face of the violence they suffer; no to the intellectual terrorism of the extreme left that wants us to believe that the thug is the one attacked and the police the aggressor”.


In his profile on the social network Twitter, Darmanin published that "this week two new measures come into force to better recognize the work of the police: revaluation of the judicial body, since the OPJ premium increases to 1,500 euros per year and the extension of the nocturnal bonus for the canine units”.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/francia- ... -0005.html

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 04, 2023 2:05 pm

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The French People Battle Pension Reform in Paris
By Alex Litsardakis, Contributor April 3, 2023

Paris, France — More than 100,000 people demonstrated in Paris, France during a nationwide 24-hour strike on March 28 to protest French President Emmanuel Macron’s forced pension reform plan that raises the retirement age.


In January, Elizabeth Born, the Prime Minister of France, announced a law that will raise the age of retirement from 62 to 64 years old. Since then, unions – no matter their political background – started one of the largest waves of demonstrations in the country since May of 1968.

The government of Emmanuel Macron is governing France without having the majority of the votes in the parliament. The Republican Party, in which Macron is relying on for votes, said no to this reform. This led Macron to bypass the parliament to push through the reform by enacting article 49.3, an article of the Constitution that gives the President extra power and legislative authorities.

Over the last months, every city in France has been resisting this unpopular reform that was passed in an undemocratic way. This sentiment went beyond the streets of France. Τwo impeachment voting procedures took place in the parliament during March, but failed to impeach Emmanuel Macron. On his last media appearance after bypassing the parliament, President Macron said that, “This reform isn’t a luxury, it’s not a pleasure, it’s a necessity.”

Police Violence
This second, and last, term of presidency for Emannuel Macron has been highlighted with increased police violence. The French parliament passed a bill making it obligatory to declare every demonstration to the authorities. Declared demonstrations, for the most part, do not face police violence.

Yet, last month demonstrators of all ages were on the streets of France every day, rioting and expressing their anger at the decisions of president Macron. These spontaneous non-declared demonstrations are being targeted by police. The latest incidents in Saint Soline on March 25, demonstrate how police are dealing with protestors, leaving one person in a coma and several injured or even mutilated.

A college student participating in the uprisings from the prestigious Sorbonne University said during the mass protest on March 28 in Paris that it’s the police that have been violent and attacking the people, from Saint Soline to Normandy to Paris.

“We’re here, and we’re not letting the cops kick us down. The students are not particularly violent. Just if the cops attack us, we answer. We are not only here, many students went to Sainte-Soline, and to the refineries of Normandy. We are not just dealing with the police, we are dealing with all the forces of the French regime.”

College student speaking during mass protest against pension reform


French police consist of three operational teams: CRS, BAC and BRAV-M. CRS is the main anti-riot police whose central task is to stay on the streets, while sometimes charging crowds. BAC is an Anti-Criminality Brigade which shows up in demonstrations, mostly undercover, without wearing a police uniform. BRAV-M is a motorcycle police unit that has shown the most violence in the streets of France.

Many in France see these units as armed forces on the streets of Paris that ‘find pleasure from beating the youth.’

“We are against armed forces and do not understand where it comes from. I mean, BRAV-M is clearly not here to solve any problem with the protests. They are here to beat the youth. They insult us, they beat us, and it pleases them.“

College student speaking during mass protest against pension reform



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French police, CRS, charge protesters against President Macron’s pension reform on March 28, 2023 in Paris, France – photo contributed by Alex Litsardakis

Devoted Unions
Unions in France have shown an unprecedented devotion to their cause. Compared to other countries where unions have largely lost their power, or even their willingness and strategy, French working-class people seem to have strategically approached the agenda of Emmanuel Macron for the last four months.

Demonstrations and strikes have been ongoing since the announcement of the reform in January. Over the last month, unions have been organizing weekly strikes, and on Tuesday, March 28 unions launched their tenth recent strike.

One of the most powerful strikes were those of the workers in the cleaning sector, who left garbage in Paris’ streets and bins for two weeks in a row. Industrial workers are striking too, with workers of petrol company Total, which made a record profit of $36.2B in 2022, going on a strike for several days in refineries and fuel depots. Reuters is reporting that 37% of operational staff at TotalEnergies went on strike in March, provoking a fall for the stock market value of the company.

Bastien Uitsice, the secretary general of CNT (Confédération Nationale du Travail) Paris, a French anarcho-syndicalist union, spoke to Unicorn Riot about the latest strikes and demonstrations in France:

“We will close nearly two months of mobilization, with a steady escalation at all levels. From the beginning, the mobilization and marches were formed by the unions with the aim of not passing the bill. But the bill was passed by force, and this bill increases the working time and also decreases the value of labor.

Today [March 28] is the 10th day of interprofessional mobilization. These days are accompanied by many other actions taking place in many areas and have grown significantly since the government decided, in a general discrediting of the democratic mechanism, to implement all possible mechanisms of the constitution to pass reforms without being voted on by parliament. So, at this stage, although the law has come into force, we are again on the streets today to remember that now the ball is sitting between the movement and the government, there is nothing in the middle. Unless something emerges from the constitutional commission, but there is not much hope.

From the beginning we, in CNT, believe that everything will be done in the streets. All people have been on the streets the last week to denounce the dictatorial policy of the government and its decisions, but also the police crackdown that is becoming more brutal. We have people who have suffered many wounds, because beyond this movement there are other struggles that came to clasp to this. In essence, all this neoliberal government is rejected and the majority of the world supports us.

CNT is a self-organized trade union and from the beginning we are fighting in the streets to learn that this is where our future is played. We try to mobilize as many workers as we can. Today we have a block that coalesces around our values: self-organization, direct democracy, no hierarchy. We can imagine another society and we are trying to build it. We need a lot of people, and people are happy to see that we exist.“


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A cardboard portrait of President Macron with devil horns is held along with a sign behind it reading “Whoever sows misery harvests anger” amid masses of protesters on March 28, 2023 in Paris, France – photo contributed by Alex Litsardakis

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 06, 2023 1:43 pm

French people lead new marches against pension reform

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The French authorities expect between 600,000 and 800,000 demonstrators in the main cities of the European country. | Photo: @Sgen_normandie
Posted 6 April 2023 (2 hours 5 minutes ago)

After the failure of the meeting with the Prime Minister, the unions accused the Government of ignoring the claim of the majority of the French.

Thousands of French people are starring this Thursday in a new day of marches and mobilizations against the pension reform promoted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Regarding the eleventh national day of demonstrations in the European country, the general secretary of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger, expects a large participation of the members to show a broad rejection of the pension reform.

The French authorities expect between 600,000 and 800,000 demonstrators, in a context in which strikes in the train service, public transport, schools and refineries in the main cities of France.

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After the failure of a meeting with the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne in the city of Paris, most of the unions ratified their intention to maintain the marches and the strike calls.

During the meeting with the French official, the unions accused the Government of ignoring the French claim and expressed their rejection of the changes in the retirement system.


This new day of mobilization occurs just over a week after the Constitutional Council (CC) makes a decision on the validity of the pension reform that was approved by the Government without completing the legislative process.

Regarding the possible CC ruling, the CFDT general secretary said that the responsibility of the constitutional entity is to put an end to the social crisis, for which reason he called not to validate the controversial reform.


Despite social discontent, the French government refuses to withdraw its reform that increases the retirement age to 64 years by 2030 and brings forward to 2027 the requirement to contribute 43 years to collect a full pension, something that two out of three French people reject .

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/francese ... -0007.html

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1.5 million French workers take to the streets against Macron’s pension reforms : Peoples Dispatch

French strikes and popular mobilizations continue, contesting not only retirement rollback, but also police brutality and authoritarian politics
Originally published: The International Marxist-Humanist on April 4, 2023 by Kevin B. Anderson (more by The International Marxist-Humanist) (Posted Apr 06, 2023)

Entering their third month, mass labor mobilizations against increasing the retirement age to 64 are encompassing a wider agenda, and wider social sectors, especially the youth.–Editors

Since January, more-or-less weekly mass labor mobilizations have continued against a new law that would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, even after it was rammed through without a vote on March 16. It should be noted that these days of action, ten of them so far, and two of them since March 16, involve the loss of a day’s pay for those who strike work. This would add up to two weeks’ pay so far this year, no small sacrifice for members of the working class.

In recent weeks, youth participation surged not only in defense of the working class and worried about their own future, but also in response the blatantly undemocratic manner in which the government rammed the measure through parliament without even taking a vote, which it would have lost. The youth have also fought against police brutality and have protested over issues related to the climate emergency.

Ever since January 19, the first nationwide labor mobilization, all eight of France’s major labor union federations have retained a solid front of refusal of Macron’s “reform.” This is virtually unheard of, as the union federations have disparate organizational and political histories, ranging from former links to the Communist Party by the large and relatively militant General Confederation of Labor (CGT) to avowed “moderates” or even a one with a relatively conservative Christian orientation. Their unity was aided by the tone-deaf arrogance and intransigence of the government of President Emmanuel Macron, who years ago gained the title “Jupiter” in public opinion.

March 2023: “The Hour of Truth”
By late March, the movement had reached a crossroads. As leftwing philosopher Frédéric Lordon told a mass meeting, “The hour of truth is approaching for everyone” (Julie Carriat, “A l’extrême gauche, la tentation de durcir la mobilization,” Le Monde, March 16, 2023). The relatively moderate tactics of the trade unions have led to impatience among their base and even more so, among the youth who’ve been drawn into the struggle. With the retirement measure now enacted as law, the movement cannot go on much longer in the same form. As Jamel Abdelmoummi of the leftwing Solidarity union federation put it:

These marches, these little songs and choreographies are too nice (Julie Carriat, “A l’extrême gauche”).

One possibility is that the movement could split into more moderate and more militant factions, each undermining the other. Or it could dissipate gradually in the face of defeat. But another possibility is that it will be able to escalate its militancy while not losing its overwhelming support among the population, eventually forcing the government to back down.

So far, the unity among the various sectors seems to be holding, despite tensions among the trade union leaders who simply want to continue the weekly days of action, leftwing political leaders who urge greater militancy, and the youth who are already engaging in militant tactics that place them in direct confrontation with the police and the state.

Another cleavage is found in how the union bureaucracy wants to confine the movement to the single issue of rescinding the pension reform, even as much of their base and most of the active youth are by now reaching for larger goals like forcing the present government to resign, doing something about police brutality, or even overthrowing the semi-authoritarian constitution of the Fifth Republic.

March 28 was the tenth more-or-less weekly day of mass strikes and demonstrations since January. While slightly smaller than the week before, demonstrators still numbered 740,000 across the country. That’s according to official government estimates, which tend low, whereas the unions put participation at over two million. Once again, many schools, much public transport, most trash collection, and several oil refineries and distribution centers were shut down across the country.

The movement shows no sign of weakening, even in the face of the fact that the pension law was passed, albeit without a real vote, by March 20. Nor have opinion polls suggested that public anger against the pension law has abated, with nearly two-thirds remaining opposed.

March 23, the ninth day of mobilization and the first one after the law’s passage, was even larger than March 28, with even more massive economic disruptions, including cancellation of flights, trains, and buses, schools on strike, and strikes that blockaded oil refineries and fuel depots. The government admitted that over one million hit the streets that day, while unions estimated a turnout of three million. According to the leading student organizations, some 500,000 students were among those on the streets that day, 150,000 of them in Paris alone.

Enter the Youth
Young people now came out in increased numbers, despite fears of harsh police response. Many of them stayed on the streets after the end of the legally sanctioned mass marches to engage in “wild demonstrations” a term for those without a permit. One student demonstrator declared,

The atmosphere is very, very tense at the moment and we risk getting beaten when we block the streets or demonstrate, but we refuse to give in and are taking to the streets all the more (Thibaud Métais, “Une moblisation en reflux malgré le renfort de la jeunesse,” Le Monde, March 30, 2023).

On that night, youth clashed with police across France. Most dramatically, they set fire to part of City Hall in Bordeaux. Sensing an opportunity, President Emmanuel Macron lashed out, calling his government “the last rampart against violence and anarchy” on the streets (Claire Gatinois, “Emmanuel Macron s’érige en garant de ‘l’ordre’ et fustige LFI,” Le Monde, March 30, 2023).

But this recourse to scare tactics seems to have fallen flat, with leftwing party France Unbowed’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon riposting, “France is not a country that can be led by blows from a cudgel” (Claire Gatinois, “Emmanuel Macron”). Even some mainstream trade unionists have refused to condemn the violence, given police provocations and the utterly undemocratic manner in which Macron’s “reform” was enacted. As one retiree in Strasbourg remarked while demonstrating in a legal action during the day, “It’s the government that exhibits violence,” adding, “it is reaping what it has sowed” (Thibaud Métais, “Une moblisation”).

He was referring not only to police attacks on pro-labor demonstrators, but also to the pitched March 25 battle between thousands of ecologists and riot police near a private reservoir complex built for agribusiness at Sainte-Soline. In that confrontation, 200 demonstrators and 47 police were wounded. One March 28 demonstrator in Bordeaux, Carine Desbrousses, drew a wider net:

As was seen on Saturday at Sainte-Soline, people are beginning to lose patience. Several causes are coalescing, as in the time of the Yellow Vests. There is also the question of wages, of sharing water. Why is that for the benefit of a handful of people rather than for the general interest of society? (Thibaud Métais, “Une moblisation”).

Youth mobilization and clashes with police began in earnest on the night of March 16, right after the Macron government used article 49.3 of the Constitution to push through their highly unpopular pension cuts without an actual vote in parliament, where it would have gone down to defeat. This maneuver allows a no-confidence vote in the government as the only recourse, but that failed by just a few votes on March 20.

It should be recalled here that France’s semi-authoritarian Fifth Republic constitution, which includes that notorious article 49.3, is the result of a military coup carried out by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958. Moreover, as was recently underlined by leftwing labor activist Christian Mahieux, no leftwing government—of which there have been several since then, if one counts reformist social democrats–has ever attempted to get rid of 49.3 (“Grèves et manifestations en France (3),” A l’encontre-La Brèche, March 22, 2023). That is on the agenda today, however, with the largest leftwing party, France Unbowed, calling for a new constitution in a Sixth Republic.

On the night of March 16, as thousands of youths hit the streets, police response was overwhelming and brutal. Whole streets were cordoned off, with demonstrators trapped—“kettled” as is said in the U.S. —and subject to mass arrest. In the first week after March 16, police arrested some 800 people, mainly youth, in Paris alone. Video footage of police employing physical threats, racist and xenophobic insults, and sexual assault upon young detainees has also emerged. Most notorious here have been the actions of BRAV-M (Brigade d’action violente motorisée), a particularly violent unit of the riot police. This has led to calls for its disbandment.

Contradictions of the Macron Presidency
The Macron government’s highhandedness and arrogance have been expressed in ways large and small. Millions were amused—albeit with bitter laughter—when Macron was caught on video removing the very expensive watch he normally wears just as he was to begin a TV appearance. More substantively, it was widely noted that he has refused to hold a single meeting with the trade union leadership since last year, not even going through a pro forma meeting where he would have pretended to “hear” their grievances before going ahead and enacting his retrogressive pension law. This is highly unusual in a country where, ever since World War II and the Nazi Occupation, governments have engaged in “social dialogue” with labor.

In this way, Macron has broken with 80 years of class compromise. Is he seeking a Margaret Thatcher type moment, or at least something similar to the axe Gerhard Schroeder wielded against Germany’s social protections some two decades ago? This seems to be the case, but the pathway is by no means clear for such an agenda, especially during a period when neoliberalism has lost much of its appeal in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008.

Macron and his ilk have succeeded in the electoral arena by pointing to the threat of rightwing populism and neofascism, as in the 2022 elections, when he stood against far-right presidential Marine Le Pen in the final round. But France has also seen in recent years a resurgence of a left that, while still reformist, is more combative than the Socialist Party, of which Macron himself was a member, albeit a rightwing one, until 2015. (As a Socialist Party minister, Macron tried to roll back France’s 35-hour workweek in the name of “competitiveness.”) By 2022, with the left’s resurgence, a more leftwing social democrat, France Unbowed candidate Mélenchon, who attacks both capitalism and police brutality, came within one percentage point of entering the presidential runoff against Macron rather than Le Pen. More tellingly, the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES), a parliamentary coalition involving Socialists, Communists, and ecologists, and in which France Unbowed is the principal component, took a far larger share than Le Pen’s party in the 2022 parliamentary elections, thus establishing itself as the principal opposition force in the National Assembly. In this way, France has become the only major industrialized democracy that has a large party to the left of the neoliberal centrists, something that occurred for several years in the UK with Labor under Jeremy Corbin’s leadership.

In fall 2022, Macron was able to contain strikes in the oil sector for higher wages in the face of galloping inflation. This period also saw mobilizations of hundreds of thousands of workers in national demonstrations against the cost of living. But neither of these limited actions suggested that the surge of the left at the polls in spring 2022 had found an echo on the streets that could really challenge the government. It was in this atmosphere that Macron began to plot his assault on the country’s pension plan, perhaps underestimating the level of resistance that was to come.

Macron’s neoliberal offensive—and his arrogant, even insulting intransigence–has succeeded in uniting the trade union bureaucracy as never before. Working people feel daily that he insults their dignity and have stood solidly behind the resistance to Macron.

Limits and Contradictions of the 2023 Struggle
At the same time, the struggle has so far been conducted within narrow limits, mobilizing millions, it is true, but not bringing the economy to a halt in the way that an unlimited strike or mass occupations would do.

There is a huge difference between ritualized general strikes of short duration, planned well in advance by trade union leaders, and the type of general strike that carries with it revolutionary implications. This is the case even when a strike becomes truly general, or nearly so, shutting down most of economic life and state administration, something that has not yet happened in France in 2023. As Rosa Luxemburg noted over a century ago, “A mass strike born of pure discipline and enthusiasm will, at best, merely play the role of an episode, of a symptom of the fighting mood of the working class” This, she added, differs from a mass strike that upsurges from below as part of a revolutionary process or a pre-revolutionary situation:

If the mass strike is not an isolated act but a whole period of the class struggle, and if this period is identical with a period of revolution, it is clear that the mass strike cannot be called at will, even when the decision to do so may come from the highest committee of the strongest social democratic party (Rosa Luxemburg Reader, p. 197).

A second limitation is found in the movement’s confinement for the most part to the state sectors, vs. those controlled by private capital, whether large or small-scale workplaces. The same has been true of other strike waves in the developed world in recent years, whether in the U.S., the UK, or Germany. However, some hints of a spread to the French private sector emerged in March, with small actions at some Amazon facilities and at PSA group, which has absorbed automaker Citroën. But so far, these are no more than hints.

A third limitation is the movement’s failure, including on the part of the trade union leadership, to address directly and forcefully the rampant racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment that have reached epidemic levels in France in recent years. The demonization of “wokism” in France, including among many intellectuals who should know better, can sometimes seem as virulent as that in Florida, while the virulence of the anti-immigrant language of Le Pen—and further to the right, her competitor Eric Zemmour—has been on the increase as well. Combined with racist fearmongering about crime, in which Macron’s government enthusiastically participates, there are many bases on which popular support is being rallied for reaction. The fact that the current movement has changed the subject toward class and economic inequality and precarity does not negate that kind of threat.

2023 and 1968
Despite these limitations, France has reached a new stage with the 2023 demonstrations. Some are comparing the present situation to 1968, when students occupied their universities and workers engaged in a general strike, ten million strong, with many also occupying their workplaces. The “events” of May-June 1968 nearly brought down de Gaulle’s government in the closest thing to a social revolution that the industrially developed world had seen since the 1920s. At that time, the system was saved by the reformist Communist Party, which controlled the largest union federation. The CP made a secret deal with de Gaulle to bring the mass labor strikes to a close in exchange reforms like a 10% wage increase and new elections, which the Left proceeded to lose amid wide disillusionment.

2023 is different, in both positive and negative terms. Today, there are no vanguard parties like the French CP that have that kind of prestige among the workers. And the students of today’s post-2008 world of precarity are not the relatively privileged youth cut off from the working class of 1968. In 1968, that socio-economic divide abetted rather than weakened by the CP and the CGT, since last thing they wanted was contact between the anarchist/far-left-Marxist tendency among the youth with “their” workers. The CP and the CGT used parade marshals and the closed gates (for “security’) of occupied factories to prevent as many such interactions as they could. Scholar activist Robi Morder has spoken to these differences, and the revolutionary possibilities of today:

And if–in the unsuccessful revolution of May and June 1968—the unity of students and workers was more often a slogan than a reality with so many barriers in place at that time, how satisfying it is today to see in the streets the strike pickets and the working class coming together in all its components—in school or training, at work or out of work, or in retirement—a unity in diversity defending its rights and its common future (“Et si tout devenait possible? Le souffle et l’esprit to mai en mars”, Mediapart, March 23, 2023).

But a barrier exists today that was not present in 1968. In that revolutionary year, both the anarchist/far-left-Marxist tendency and the basically Stalinist French Communist Party agreed that it was possible to transcend capitalism. Even if the Stalinist vision was really one of state-capitalism that covered over the class nature of the Soviet Union, many CP members and followers really believed another world was possible. For its part, the far left was even more explicit with its famous slogan, “Be realistic, demand the impossible.” While even these genuine revolutionaries lacked a real philosophy of revolution and a comprehensive vision of an alternative to capitalism, at least they were placing the abolition of capitalism on the agenda. Today, on the other hand, few even on the left believe that construction of what we would call a socialist humanist society is on the horizon, now or in the coming period. This is seen in how the 2023 struggle is basically a defensive one.

2023 as a Turning Point?
That said, even a defensive struggle can morph into a revolutionary offensive. That is why the global bourgeois media, while generally supporting Macron, is also expressing worry on the part of global capital and its politicians about his tactics, his arrogance, and his tone-deaf speeches. They fear that this could turn into a real challenge to neoliberalism, if not to capitalism itself. They observe the resurgence of labor across the industrially developed world, the ongoing uprisings of Black people and other people of color and Indigenous people, the deep anger and mobilizations of women and of LBGTQ people, especially trans folks, and the renewed militancy of the environmental movement. And they fear, rightly so, that France, as in the past, could become a detonator for a broader struggle against capitalism itself.

In closing, let me quote declarations from two different sectors of the population that speak to the deep social fissures that Macron has stirred up. Such sentiments carry with them possibilities far more revolutionary than what has been seen up to now:

The street has a legitimacy in France. If Mr. Macron can’t remember this historic reality, I don’t know what he’s doing here. — Anonymous youthful protestor in Nantes (BBC, March 23, 2023)

This government doesn’t want to negotiate. Well, at a certain point they’re going to find themselves up against people that don’t want to negotiate either. — Renald, mechanic blockading an oil facility the Port of Marseille (Cole Stangler, “In France, the Damage Can’t Be Undone,” New York Times, March 25, 2023).


https://mronline.org/2023/04/06/french- ... -politics/
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 07, 2023 1:55 pm

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Demonstration in Paris, 28 March. (Photo: Shabbir Lakha)

French trade unions: the roots of revolt against Macron
Originally published: Counterfire on March 31, 2023 by John Mullen (more by Counterfire) | (Posted Apr 07, 2023)

The huge movement against Macron’s attack on pensions is still erupting. The tenth day of action last Tuesday saw millions on the streets, and numerous strikes continue (in some sectors moving into their fourth week). Blockading of some motorways, ports, universities and high schools also show that the movement is not ready to give up, although the national union leaderships are refusing to call a real general strike and are making worrying noises about ‘the need for arbitration’. The latest polls show that 63% of the entire French population ‘want the mobilisation to continue’ and 40% want it ‘to get more radical’. We haven’t won yet, but we certainly haven’t lost yet.

And Macron has sustained serious damage. He has been obliged to shelve some other vicious laws, and make concessions on other issues (such as student grants). Whatever happens, he will have to abandon most of the other neoliberal reforms he planned, and Macronism as a political force may well be dead in the medium term.

People from afar sometimes assume that all French people are born rebellious, or that we tell bedtime stories about guillotining the rich to infants in order to instil such radicality. But the present combativity, and the political class consciousness of French workers (since millions of those mobilising right now are not personally directly affected by the attacks on the pension system) have been built up over 30 years, since the first mass revolt to defend pensions in 1995. This article is to explain some of the background to the movement, rooted in the specifics of French trade union structure.

Trade union membership in France is considerably lower than, say, Britain. In the public sector under 20% of workers are members of a union, and in the private sector less than 10%. However, these figures are misleading, and trade union influence is far wider than membership figures suggest. Millions of non-members nevertheless vote for, and are represented by, union candidates for health committees, company councils, regional wages councils, and other such bodies which negotiate locally, regionally or nationally on health and safety, bonuses, promotions, transfers and working hours as well as on minimum wages and pay scales. Agreements signed by trade unions on these bodies apply to all workers, union and non-union. Many workers see union members as activists, organisers and advisors whose job is to support and encourage individual workers and to lead various fightbacks, whether or not the workers involved are themselves union members.

Large numbers of the workers who have taken strike action in the public sector this month are not union members. The right to strike is part of the French constitution, and non-union workers are legally protected by the strike declarations made by unions. Relatively solid legal protection means that it is very common, on days of action, to have minorities in a workplace taking strike action. In one railway depot there might be 20% of strikers, in another 80% and so on.

Confederations
A key historical weakness of the union movement here is its division into–sometimes competing–confederations, of which the most important are the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail–640 000 members), FO (Force Ouvrière–350 000), the CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail–650 000), Solidaires (110 000) and the FSU (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire 160 000). In some sectors, workers tend to just join the biggest union in their workplace (the FSU is 80% teachers, for example). In many sectors, though, people will choose the union according to their politics. The CGT (which used to be extremely close to the Communist Party) is generally more combative than the CFDT, and people choose in consequence, for example. Solidaires is the most combative and the most left wing. It is important in the railways and in telecommunications, and will often be at the centre of the most radical actions. But it has the long-term disadvantage that it can be separating off the most left-wing workers, and thus have less influence on the mass of less politicised people when class struggle rises.

The separation into different confederations is obviously an advantage for the bosses, as the confederations can sometimes be played against each other. In 1995, in 2003 and in 2019, three of the previous occasions when the pension system was under attack, the government managed to get the CFDT on its side, through minor concessions and institutional favouritism. The CFDT leadership has generally defended the idea of ‘partnership trade unionism like in Germany’. The situation in 2023, when the attack is angering workers so much that the CFDT leadership has not (yet) dared to break ranks and do a deal with Macron, is an exceptional one. That threat is nevertheless an important brake on the movement, since the national leadership of the CGT and others have toned down their combativity ‘in the interests of unity’. From January to April, the inter-union national committee (Intersyndicale) has chosen the dates of the days of action and has refused to call for the obvious option of an indefinite general strike.

There is a large amount of rank-and-file activity, independent of national leadership, right now. CGT or Solidaires federations, in some regions or industries, or inter-union committees at local, regional, or industrial level, are behind the dozens of ongoing strikes, blockades of energy sites, docks, or wholesale distribution hubs.

One of the key traditions of the French trade union movement is the ‘renewable strike’ (grève reconductible). This is a strike where the strikers meet in a mass meeting every day or two, debate and vote on continuing the strike or not. This has been the basis of ongoing strikes at present among refuse workers (each depot voting separately), dockers, air traffic controllers and many more. What is excellent about this tradition is it means decisions are being made by the workers involved, and not by the union bureaucracy nationally. The downside is it has helped allow national union leaders to get away with not campaigning for an indefinite general strike. All the national leaders have called for the days of action, while some (like the CGT) have said that they encourage ‘renewable strikes wherever possible’.

The present movement is definitely helping recruit people to unions, and the CGT has announced a campaign to get young workers to join. The best boost would of course be to win the present battle and defend the pension age. An eleventh day of action has been called for 6th April, and this week demonstrations against police violence and the shortage of petrol in some regions are keeping the movement on the front pages. Everything is still to play for.

https://mronline.org/2023/04/07/french-trade-unions/

********

US Media Cheer as France Forces Old People to Work
CONOR SMYTH

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The Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) reports with evident alarm that “France has one of the lowest rates of retirees at risk of poverty in Europe.”

“The Party Is Ending for French Retirees.” That’s the headline the Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) went with just days before French President Emmanuel Macron invoked a special article of the constitution to bypass the National Assembly and enshrine an increase in the retirement age in national law. The Journal proclaimed:

The golden age of French pensions is coming to an end, one way or another, in an extreme example of the demographic stress afflicting the retirement systems of advanced economies throughout the world.

The possibility that this “golden age” could be extended is not even entertained. Due to previous “reforms” (CounterSpin, 9/17/10), the pension of the average French person is already facing cuts over the coming decades. So preserving the current level of benefits would require strengthening the system. For the Journal, this is out of the question. Stingier pensions, on the other hand, are portrayed as the inevitable result of “demographic stress,” not policy choices.

The French people, by contrast, recognize that a less generous pension system is far from an inevitability. Protesters quickly took to the streets this January after the government unveiled plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64; one poll from that month found 80% of the country opposed to such a change. And as the government pushed the reform through in March, protests grew especially rowdy, with monuments of refuse lining the city’s streets and fires illuminating the Parisian landscape.

But that’s just how the French are, you know? They’re a peculiar people, much different from us Americans.

The French are built different
.
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A New York Times profile (2/24/23) depicted Jean-Baptiste Reddé as “a kind of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ who invariably appears alongside unionists blowing foghorns and battalions of armor-clad riot police.”

As the New York Times’ Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen put it in a recent episode of the Daily (3/16/23), protesters have been “talking about how life begins when work ends, which is a deeply held French conviction, very different from the American view that life is enriched and enhanced by work.”

Left unmentioned is the fact that, for decades, Americans have consistently opposed increases to the Social Security retirement age, usually by a large margin (CounterSpin, 10/26/18). Moreover, two-thirds of the American public support a four-day workweek, and half say Americans work too much. How French of them.

US media (Extra!, 3–4/96) have taken to covering the uprising against pension “reform” in the same way the narrator of a nature documentary might describe the wilderness:

Now, we come to a Frenchman in his natural habitat. His behavior may give the impression of idleness, but don’t let that fool you. If prodded enough with the prospect of labor, he will not hesitate before lighting the local pastry shop ablaze.

The New York Times (2/24/23), for instance, ran an article in the midst of the protests headlined “The French Like Protesting, but This Frenchman May Like It the Most,” about a man who has “become a personal embodiment of France’s enduring passion for demonstration.” It followed that up with a piece (3/7/23) presenting French opposition to an increase in the retirement age as some exotic reflection of the French’s French-ness. A source attested to the country’s uniqueness: “In France, we believe that there is a time for work and then a time for personal development.”

Meanwhile, while the Washington Post has mostly been content to outsource coverage of the protests to Associated Press wires, it did run a piece (3/15/23) by one of its own reporters titled: “City of … Garbage? Paris, Amid Strikes, Is Drowning in Trash.”

The burden of old people

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The Washington Post (3/17/23) urged the United States to join France in “forcing needed reforms to old-age benefit programs.”

This fairly unserious reporting on the protests contrasts sharply with the grave rhetoric deployed by the editorial boards of major newspapers in opposing the protesters’ demands. The Wall Street Journal (3/16/23), which has implored the French to face “the cold reality” of spending cuts, is not alone in its crusade against French workers. The boards of the Washington Post, Bloomberg and the Financial Times have all run similarly dour editorials promoting pension reform over the past few months.

Among these, only the Financial Times (3/19/23) opposed the French government’s remarkably anti-democratic decision to raise the retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly, opining that Macron’s tactics have both “weakened” him and left “France with a democratic deficit.”

The Washington Post (3/17/23), by contrast, suggested democratic means would have been preferable, but gave no indication of opposition to Macron’s move. (As FAIR has pointed out—3/9/23—the Post’s supposed concern for democracy doesn’t extend far beyond its slogan.) And the Wall Street Journal (3/16/23) actually saluted the move, remarking, “Give Mr. Macron credit for persistence—and political brass.”

The editorial boards’ case for pension reform is based on a simple conviction—French pensions are unsustainable—for which there are three main pieces of evidence.

First, the ratio of workers to retirees. The Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) included a graphic projecting the worker-to-retiree ratio through 2070:


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The Wall Street Journal graphic (3/14/23) does not note that over this same time period, from 2019 to 2070, the percentage of French GDP spent on pensions is projected to decline from 14.8% to 12.6%.

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As the graphic shows, this ratio has declined substantially since 2002, and is set to decline even more over the next several decades. This trend is referenced more or less directly in editorials by the Journal (3/16/23, 1/31/23, 1/13/23), the Washington Post (3/17/23) and the Financial Times (3/19/23).

The declining worker-to-retiree ratio is meant to inspire fear, but in and of itself, it’s not necessarily a problem. After all, the increased costs associated with a rising number of retirees could very well be offset by other factors. It is therefore much more useful to look directly at how much of a nation’s wealth is used to support retirees.

Which brings us to the second commonly cited piece of evidence: pensions as a percentage of GDP. This is mentioned in editorials by the Journal (3/16/23, 1/31/23, 1/13/23), Post (3/17/23) and Bloomberg (1/16/23).

As it turns out, there’s no problem to be found here. In its 2021 Aging Report, the European Commission estimates that, even without a rise in the minimum retirement age to 64, public pension spending in France would actually decline over the next several decades, dropping to 12.6% of GDP in 2070, down from 14.8% in 2019. Cost-saving factors, primarily the deterioration in benefit levels, would more than cancel out the increase in the number of retirees. In other words, there is no affordability crisis. It doesn’t exist.

Which side are you on?

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For the Financial Times (1/10/23), cutting pensions is “indispensable” because “plugging a hole in the pension system is a gauge of credibility for Brussels and for financial markets which are again penalizing ill-discipline.”

The only actual evidence for the unsustainability of France’s pension system is the system’s deficit, which is projected to reach around €14 billion by 2030. This piece of evidence is cited in editorials by the Journal (1/31/23, 1/13/23) and the Financial Times (3/19/23, 1/10/23).

One solution to the deficit is raising the retirement age. Another is raising taxes. Oddly enough, the editorials cited above almost universally fail to mention the second option.

The only editorial board to bring up the possibility of raising taxes is the Financial Times’ (1/10/23), which comments, “Macron has rightly ruled out raising taxes or rescinding tax breaks since France’s tax share of GDP is already 45%, the second-highest in the OECD after Denmark.”

This statement says much more about the Times than it does about the reasonableness of raising taxes. Oxfam France (1/18/23) has estimated that a mere 2% tax on the wealth of French billionaires could eliminate the projected pension deficit. Rescinding three tax cuts that Macron’s government passed and that largely benefit the wealthy could free up €16 billion each year. That would plug the pension system’s projected deficit with money left over.

Which option you pick—increasing taxes on the wealthy or raising the retirement age—depends entirely on who you want to bear the costs of shoring up the pension system. Do you want the wealthy to sacrifice a little? Or do you want to ratchet up the suffering of lower-income folks a bit? Are you on the side of the rich, or the poor and working class? The editorial boards of these major newspapers have made their allegiance clear.

https://fair.org/home/us-media-cheer-as ... e-to-work/

Actually, I want the wealthy to 'sacrifice' all their ill-gotten gains.
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:07 pm

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The protests continue across France. This in Paris on 6th April. (Source: John Mullen)

The French Left and the ongoing workers revolt
By John Mullen (Posted Apr 11, 2023)

Originally published: Counterfire on April 7, 2023 (more by Counterfire) |

The 11th day of action to defend pensions and oppose Macron, Thursday 6 April, again saw millions on the street, and hundreds of thousands on strike, in a joyful festival atmosphere. This despite police repression, and despite the refusal of national union leaderships either to organize an indefinite general strike or to give any real support to the more radical sections of workers, such as the oil refinery workers blockading oil depots with mass pickets (Meanwhile the government sends in riot police and requisitions some workers to force them to go to work).

Conflict at a plateau
Thursday’s day of action attracted fewer protestors, but still millions, in 370 demonstrations across France. Bosses’ representatives were complaining this week that each day of action “costs a billion and a half euros”. In Italy and in Belgium there have been some solidarity strikes. Young people are far more in evidence at the demonstrations this week, hundreds of high schools and dozens of universities are regularly blockaded, and the slogans are more radical than before. Thursday, hundreds of young people in Paris were chanting “we are young, fired up, and revolutionary” while a barricaded high school in the centre of France resounded to the chant “Down with the state, the cops, and the fascists!” In Paris last week, a bemused Norwegian pop singer, Girl in Red, cutely asked her concert audience to teach her a little French. The hall erupted with chants of “Macron, démission!”—“ Macron, resign!”.

There are ongoing strikes in oil, air transport, docks and energy, although refuse collectors and several key rail depots have suspended strike action, feeling isolated, after three or four weeks striking. And every day there are local demonstrations or motorways or wholesale centres blockaded. A few days ago over a thousand students at the university of Tolbiac in Paris were debating the way forward together.

The conflict with Macron is at a plateau. Neither side is prepared to give in, and the movement is neither accelerating nor collapsing. As the revolt continues, considering political strategy is essential. How are the Left organizations doing, faced with a huge and very popular revolt, and a national union leadership strategy which is unable to win ?

Left organizations put to the test
A historic social explosion is always a test for any Left organization. In this article I want to briefly evaluate the different wings of the French Left in the crisis. This is a delicate exercise. Many thousands of activists in all the Left parties (and many non-party people) have been doing excellent work organizing strikes and protests, leafleting and caucusing, encouraging creativity and rebellion. Most of them have done more than I have, so I do not want to appear as a red professor giving them marks out of ten. But we need to win, this battle and many more, to defend ourselves and eventually to get rid of capitalism, so strategies must be understood and criticized openly.

The political landscape in France today has been formed by decades of neoliberalism and the powerful fightback against it. In 1995, in 2006 and in 2019, huge strike movements were successful in winning defensive battles against pension attacks, or against attacks on workers’ labour contract conditions. In 2003, 2010 and 2016, massive movements were defeated by the government and laws implemented to reduce pensions, and to make it much easier to sack workers.

There are two key points here. One is that all these struggles, like the one going on right now, are defensive struggles, to stop the neoliberals taking stuff away from us. They are inspiring, but nevertheless they are defensive. Secondly, they involve a high level of political class consciousness. Millions of older workers went on strike and protested in 2006, when the government threatened a worse work contract for employees under 26. Millions of workers not affected personally by the present Macron attack on pensions are enthusiastically taking part in the movement anyway. The idea that “an injury to one is an injury to all” and the understanding that if they beat us in this battle they will be all the stronger for the next is extremely widespread.

Finally, we need to understand that even when the explosive movements lost on their immediate defensive demands, governments were generally obliged to shelve a whole series of other attacks they had been planning (as this month they have shelved a racist immigration law, and also suspended a plan to reintroduce 2 weeks of national military service for all young people).

After the Socialist Party destroyed itself
It is this energetic class struggle which has formed the political landscape today. The Socialist Party was electorally destroyed after the Socialist government introduced new labour laws in 2016, smashing national union agreements, reducing payment for overtime etc. In the 2022 elections the party got 32 Members of Parliament—ten times fewer than in 2012 !

But the millions of people involved in the mass movements I have mentioned, sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, were looking for a political expression to their opposition to neoliberalism. They didn’t become millions of Marxists, because Marxism was still very solidly linked to Stalinism and Soviet imperialism in people’s minds, and because the Marxist organizations were not big enough or smart enough to grow much. But people were looking for a radical Left insurgent option, and that is what made the France Insoumise (France in Revolt) possible. If you imagine that, in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn had left the Labour Party and built a radical Left alternative, which then went on to get seven million votes, that is the France Insoumise.

The France Insoumise calls for “a citizens’ revolution”, which is meant to happen by sweeping away the presidentialist fifth republic and putting a sixth republic in its place, while defending a very radical programme. Retirement at 60, a turn to 100% renewable energy 100% organic farming, a big rise in the minimum wage, a billion euros for measures to fight violence against women, and so on.

The FI movement and its 74 MPs have been playing a positive role in the present revolt. When Prime Minister Borne announced that the attack on pensions would be forced through by decree, all the FI MPs held up signs for the cameras “See you in the streets !”. When the national union leaders called a day of action ten long days after the previous one, the FI called for rallies in front of all the regional government headquarters between the two days of action. The FI’s strike fund has raised 900 000 euros. And this week, FI leader Melenchon is being taken to court by the Paris chief of police for “insulting the police”. He had declared that one particularly violent police squad should be dissolved and the “young men should be sent off for psychological help” because “Normal folk don’t volunteer to get on a motorcycle and beat people with batons as they pass by”. These few symbolic examples show the radicalism of the FI.

It is unsurprising that Macron is launching a major campaign against the France Insoumise. He accuses it of “wanting to delegitimize our institutions”. His hardline interior minister Gérard Darmanin is denouncing the “intellectual terrrorism” of the radical left. The entire left must be ready to defend the FI against right-wing attacks, whatever other disagreements subsist.

There is still much missing, however, in the FI approach. In many ways a traditional reformist organization, seeing parliament at the centre of its medium-term strategy, the organization accepts a “division of labour” by means of which it is the role of union leaderships to run the strike movement, and political parties should stay out of debates about strategy. This is disastrous when the union leadership’s strategy is so woefully inadequate. In addition, many among the FI leadership are keen to win this battle so that political life gets “back to normal” and politics resumes through traditional channels. We Marxists, in contrast, are hoping that this battle will build up consciousness and organization which will make our class refuse to go “back to normal” political life, but rather start exploring how capitalism can be overthrown.

The rise of the France Insoumise and its successful occupation of the radical Left space has left the French Communist Party squeezed out. It still has 50,000 members, of which nearly a third are elected local or regional councillors, and it has twelve members of parliament. Under its leader Fabien Roussel, it is trying to occupy a space clearly to the right of the France Insoumise, to capture some of the people the Parti Socialiste lost but who were not tempted by Macronism, or even some of the far right voters. Roussel has shown this by declaring his support for nuclear power, by attending rallies organized by hard right police trade unions, and, right now, by prioritizing the campaign for a referendum on the pensions law (a process which would take months and require almost five million signatures).

The revolutionary approach
What, then, of the revolutionary left ? In France, there are three revolutionary organizations with a couple of thousand of members each, one with about a thousand, and four with a couple of hundred each. One or two of these last operate inside France Insoumise networks, since the FI is an extremely loose organization. Some of the most radical actions, such as taking busloads of students to join mass pickets at the oil refineries, or organizing regular grassroots inter union meetings, have been initiated by revolutionaries. And some of the most important questions: how to move from a powerful defensive movement to an offensive against neoliberalism and capitalism, are put forward by Marxists.

Yet there is a crucial lack. There is no organization setting up public meetings in every town entitled “General Strike: Why and How?” There is no organization calling rallies in front of the regular meetings of the national union leaderships, pushing them to call a real general strike. Most revolutionaries are following a strategy of “pushing the movement forward as far as possible”. This is obviously essential, but leaves the general strategy in the hands of union leaderships. A clear analysis of the role of trade union leaders as professional negotiators with specific interests (which rapidly conflict with those of workers when struggle rises) is generally absent.

The 11th day of action is on April the 13th, but the weakness of the weekly day of action as sole national strategy is ever more visible. Less combative organizations are suggesting the solution is to spend months campaigning for a referendum. But what is needed is an indefinite general strike.

https://mronline.org/2023/04/11/the-fre ... rs-revolt/

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Protests against pension reform rage across France

Talks between the government and trade unionists on Wednesday failed after the government refused to roll back the controversial reforms that will increase the retirement age in France

April 07, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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Protest in Dunkirk. (Photo: via UL CGT Dunkirk/Twitter)

Around two million people hit the streets across France on Thursday, April 6, to protest the pension reforms forcefully passed by the government of Emmanuel Macron. Thursday marked the eleventh major protest against the reforms since January 19. The unpopular reforms will increase restrictions on accessing pensions in the country.

During Thursday’s national mobilization, police tried to forcefully quell the protests in many cities and reportedly made around 111 arrests. A coalition of trade unions have called for another round of mobilization on April 13, a day before the decision of the Constitutional Council over the implementation of the reforms is due.

The national mobilization took place a day after talks between the trade union leadership and French Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne. Unions reported that the dialogue was unsuccessful as the government refused to roll back the reforms.

On April 6, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) said that “in the coming weeks, the CGT will continue to demand the outright withdrawal of the reform for the thousands of workers, young people, who believe in victory. It calls for the responsibility of the Constitutional Council, which must be attentive to the just anger of workers.”

“We call on the world of work to mobilize, everywhere in services and companies, by calls for strike decided in General Assembly and to go on strike and demonstrate on Thursday, April 13 at the call of the inter-union and to continue with initiatives on April 14 when the Constitutional Council will render its decisions on the pension reform, until withdrawal,” CGT added.

The pension reforms were announced by Borne on January 10. The reforms stipulate the phased raising of the retirement age in France from 62 to 64, at the rate of three months per year, from September 1, 2023 until 2030 and increase the contribution period necessary to obtain a “full-rate” pension, i.e. without discount, from the current 42 years (168 quarters) to 43 years (172 quarters) by 2027, at the rate of one quarter per year.

Shortly following the announcement in January, massive protests were organized against the reforms by trade unions and the left-wing coalition New Ecologic and Social Peoples Union’s (NUPES). However, on March 16, Prime Minister Borne invoked emergency provision Article 49.3 of the constitution to bypass voting in the National Assembly and then passed the law which includes the controversial pension reforms. The protests intensified when the government survived a vote of no-confidence on March 20, which had been tabled by opposition groups in the National Assembly, but failed after falling short of just nine votes.

Read: Pension reform or Revolution! Crisis for the French Fifth Republic?
According to reports, Macron plans to enforce the reforms by the end of the year and believes that the protests will gradually lose steam. In the face of this, unions and the French Left have called for more unity and plan to intensify the protests. They are currently waiting for the Constitutional Council’s decision on approval to the full text of the reforms undemocratically passed in the parliament. The opponents of the reforms are also planning to propose a Referendum of Shared Initiative (RIP) on the implementation of the reforms.

French Communist Party (PCF) leader Fabien Roussel MP told the media on April 4, “We call on the President of the Republic to take initiatives quickly to return the voice to the people. Respect parliamentarians and the people who are widely opposed to the reform. Withdraw the pension reform, find a way to renew the dialogue!”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/04/07/ ... ss-france/

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The ‘dry residue’ from Macron’s visit to China

Sometimes it pays to hold your fire, to allow leaders in the mainstream in the West, in Russia and elsewhere step forward first with their appraisals of important events like Macron’s visit to China last week before setting out an independent opinion for dissemination via alternative media. In this regard, I am pleased to have benefited from reports in The Financial Times, in Figaro, Le Monde and Les Echos, on the website Politico.eu and on the Russian news and analysis programs Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov before sitting down to write about what I would call the ‘dry residue’ from Macron’s joint visit to China last week in the company of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Let us recall that on the eve of this visit The Financial Times, Euronews, the BBC and other mainstream Western media all directed attention to just one aspect of the forthcoming summit: what Macron and von der Leyen would be saying to President Xi. Put succinctly, this was to urge the Chinese to apply pressure on the Kremlin and bring the Russians to the peace table on Kiev’s terms. There was the further point by von der Leyen speaking to reporters before the trip: to warn the Chinese against sending arms to Russia lest they face “consequences” in damaged relations with the European Union. As a brief coda to FT coverage ahead of the visit, we were told that there were a number of “business leaders” traveling with Macron, though there was no indication of what, if anything, they would be doing.

The first news out of mainstream media as the visit of Macron and von der Leyen ended was that the Chinese gave a very reserved answer to the gratuitous advice from the European visitors. Xi is said to have smiled politely in answer to the request to intervene with the Russians and so to participate more actively in brokering peace. Von der Leyen told journalists before leaving Beijing that Xi had heard out her suggestion that he pick up the phone and speak to Zelensky. But, she noted, his response was that he would do so only when the time was appropriate.

However, already on the 7th, the FT appeared to concede that China might also have had agency in the relationship with the European visitors. We see this in an article entitled “Tea with Xi: Macron gets personal touch as China visit highlights EU differences.” See the following excerpt:

Macron, who was accompanied to China by dozens of French business leaders, was joined for part of his three-day visit by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a gesture of common European purpose towards Beijing. Yet any sense of unity was undercut by arrangements that flattered the French leader with a banquet, military parade and other trappings of a state visit, while von der Leyen was excluded from several of the lavish events.

What this meant in practice is set out in a quote from John Delury, a China expert with Yonsei University in Seoul:

‘Xi’s strategy is: Macron is coming with his hands outstretched so they’re embracing him; [von der Leyen] is articulating the harder European position, and they’re trying to put her out at the margins,’ he said.

In the same 7 April issue of The Financial Times, we find an Opinion article by Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director of Le Monde, entitled tantalizingly “Europe is feeling its way towards a new relationship with China.” The most valuable contribution in the article may be its final two paragraphs:

The EU is now building tools to protect itself from foreign interference. It is also learning to behave like a world power. Von der Leyen and Macron’s tough words in Beijing may have surprised the Chinese leadership.

Yet Macron had more than 50 chief executives travelling with him. And China is the EU’s largest trading partner. A more assertive China and a more assertive Europe are now trying to find common ground in a world where geopolitical realities clash with economic interests.


Of course, in the body of her article Kauffmann gave us not a word about what those 50 CEO’s may have achieved in China or what common ground China and the EU may settle upon. However, as someone who has followed Kauffmann over time, I think the elegant vacuousness of her writing may be what makes it so attractive to the FT today as it was in the past to The International Herald Tribune. Back in 2013, I did a critique of her article in the IHT that bears a title which seems particularly piquant today: “How Europe Can Help Kiev.” My opening remarks said it all:

Kauffmann’s op-ed essay shows that she deals in platitudes and makes fool-hardy mistakes of fact and interpretation which, due to her august position in mainstream media, few if any call out.

For those who wish to pursue the issue of Kauffmann’s intellectual laziness that explains this vacuousness, I refer you to my collection of essays Does Russia Have a Future? (2015) p. 91 ff.

So, the FT, a major source of business information to a global audience, has given its readers absolutely no information about the business side of the French delegation’s visit to China. This is extraordinary since CEOs never travel on state visits of their presidents to do negotiating on the spot. They come to sign contracts or letters of intent that have been prepared well in advance by their top headquarters executives and country managers. That is the scenario I saw time and again when I attended Russian-U.S. summits during my days as a consultant to the boards of directors of several major international corporations. Therefore, I surmise that the French have done a magnificent job concealing from public view the business they may have concluded in Beijing, this to avoid censure from the other 27 EU member states, many of whom are surely very jealous of possible French successes in these times of sanctions on Russia and threat of secondary sanctions on Russia’s friends.

In a moment, I will take a look at the interesting news item that yesterday shook Western media commentators, and presumably their audiences as well: the interview which Emmanuel Macron gave to to reporters from Politico.eu and Les Echos. But first I want to direct attention to how Russian state television presented the Macron visit to China to its domestic audience. From start to finish.

The outstanding difference is that the leading Russian political talk shows, Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, which mix presentation of video taken from mostly Western mainstream media and commentary from expert panelists, gave the floor to professional Sinologists. Among them was one stand-out: Nikolai Nikolaevich Vavilov. Thirty-eight year old Vavilov has come into his own as an authority ready to convey to television audiences what the Chinese are messaging both in words and by body language with reference to the traditional culture of the Middle Kingdom. Even the overbearing television host Solovyov fell silent and let Vavilov do the talking.

It bears mention that Vavilov is a graduate of St Petersburg State University. His website informs us that over the course of ten years he studied and worked in various regions of China. During his university years already he was sent to China by his faculty adviser to participate in a state-to-state scholarly exchange. From 2008 to 2013, he worked for Russian trading and manufacturing companies in three Chinese provinces. From 2013 to 2015, he was employed in the Chinese state information agency Xinhua. He is the author of two Russian-language books, Uncrowned kings of Red China (2016) and The Chinese Authorities (2021).

And what was Vavilov saying on Russian television about the Macron visit? First, in contrast with Western news reports, from even before Macron landed in Beijing, Vavilov explained that the Chinese allowed the trip to go forward, despite the publicly stated intentions of the visitors to lecture him, which is deeply offensive and brings up bitter memories of 19th century colonial overlordship, because China had its own plans for the outcome. These were to remind France of the economic benefits of remaining politically friendly with Beijing and to lock in major projects with leading French corporations that can bring important new technologies to China.

Vavilov also pointed out that Macron’s publicized phone conversation with Joe Biden before he flew off to Beijing made him look like a puppet of Washington to his Chinese hosts. Their highest priority would be to break that relationship.

As the visit progressed, Vavilov and others provided relevant details of the differentiated receptions accorded to Macron and to von der Leyen. We learned to our surprise that von der Leyen did not travel to China on Macron’s jet. Instead, she arrived on a commercial flight. Upon arrival, no red carpet was laid down for her, there was no military honor guard and senior Chinese official there to meet her. She simply got the standard VIP treatment inside the arrivals hall. When Xi received Macron and von der Leyen together for joint talks, they were seated at a very big round table several meters apart. This was similar to the arrangements that Vladimir Putin had put in place for his meetings with Scholz and others in Moscow during the peak of the Covid crisis. However, China has put Covid behind it and the special distance of seating at the meeting was to underline the political distance of the parties, especially that of von der Leyen.

No detail was too small to escape comment by the Russian experts. The unusual blue color of the cloth covering the meeting table was said to be meant either as a reference to the blue background of the flag of the European Union, which hung by the wall, or as a reference to a state of mourning, since blue is the fabric bound to the coffins of the deceased in China for the burial ceremony.

At the same time, it bears mention that the Russia media had not a word to say about any business agreements that may have been concluded by the French delegation. The wall of silence on this matter seems to have been very effective indeed.

Von der Leyen was dealt a very meager agenda during her stay in Beijing. She was excluded from the big banquets and other major events of the state visit by Macron. None of this could have escaped the attention of the business delegation or of the French and other foreign journalists who covered the visit. In brief, she was cut down to size.

The proof that China had its own agenda for the state visit by Macron and largely succeeded, whereas the visitors’ political agenda failed, came yesterday with publication of an interview which Emmanuel Macron gave to Politico and Les Echos over the course of two flights on France’s Air Force One. One flight leg was from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China. The other was on the return flight to Paris.

See: https//www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron ... interview/ and https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/enjeux-in ... pe-1933493

Comparing the two publications, the article in Les Echos is more substantial. However, I will use the English text of Politico as the base material below.

Given their advance preparation for this denouement of the visit, Russian media took in stride what Macron told reporters, whereas Western media are still reverberating from the shock that Macron delivered in the informal meeting with journalists.

“Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron. The ‘great risk’ Europe faces is getting ‘caught up in crises that are not ours,’ French president says in interview.” This is the headline and subtitle that Politico assigned to its summary of the interview.

They quote Macron in greater length as regards the ‘crisis’ he had in mind:

The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers. The question Europeans need to answer…is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction…

In another part of their text, Politico summarized several key points from Macron’s remarks to them that bear mention here:

Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.

He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the ‘extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,’ a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.

‘If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up…we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,’ he said.


In an aside to readers at the end of the article, Politico explains that the Elysée Palace had insisted on the right to ‘proofread’ all the president’s quotes that they would publish as a condition for granting the interview. They obliged but, as we read here: “The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.”

Looking at the more extensive article in Les Echos, I call attention to the quite important statements attributed to Macron as regards Europe’s strategic autonomy:

The paradox is that the American grip on Europe is stronger than ever…

We certainly have increased our dependence vis-à-vis the United States in the domain of energy, but it is in the logic of diversification, because we were much too dependent on Russian gas. Today, the fact is that we depend more on the United States, on Qatar and on others. But this diversification was necessary.

As for the rest, you have to take into account the redesign effects. For too long Europe did not build the strategic autonomy for which I have been fighting. Now the ideological battle has been won and the fundamentals have been laid down. There is a price to pay for that, and that is normal. It is like for the French reindustrialization: we have won the ideological battle, we have carried out the reforms, they are tough, and we are beginning to see the results of this but at the same time, we are paying for the broken pottery of what we did not do for twenty years. That’s politics! You have to stay the course.


To this I would add one more quote from Macron in Les Echos that is relevant to today’s discussion:

Is Joe Biden just a more polite version of Donald Trump?

He is attached to democracy, to the fundamental principles, to the international logic; and he knows and loves Europe. All of this is essential. On the other hand, he fits into the American bipartisan logic which defines American interests as priority number 1 and China as priority number 2. Should that be criticized? No. But we must take that on board.

I have included these extensive quotes, because I think they demonstrate how Emmanuel Macron over-intellectualizes the political processes. He even made passing reference to the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci in his remarks to journalists. No doubt they were mostly flummoxed.

My point is that Macron is living in a parallel world. Eggs break when you make an omelet is his view of how the pension reform was passed. He appears to be equally indifferent to objective reality in the geopolitical domain. It is beyond my understanding how he can say that Europe may become a vassal if this or that comes to pass, and not see the present status of Europe as unequivocally that of the vassal with respect to the U.S. hegemon. This obtuseness has to carry over into his evaluation of relations with China and how he conducted his conversations with Xi tête-à-tête for nearly six hours with only interpreters present.

Macron obviously sees himself as a man of destiny. That was patently clear already early in his first term when he delivered his address to a combined session of Congress and positioned himself as being in line with the only other Frenchman who had been so honored, General De Gaulle. The question is what destiny lies ahead for him. Will it be the guillotine, figuratively speaking?

I close this examination of the ‘dry residue’ of Macron’s visit to China with mention of an article that appeared in today’s The Financial Times.

“Emmanuel Macron’s Taiwan remarks spark international backlash” by FT reporters in Paris, Brussels and Washington. The key passages are as follows:

French president Emmanuel Macron has come under fire for saying that Europe should distance itself from brewing tensions between the US and China over Taiwan, and forge its own strategic independence on everything from energy to defence.

Diplomats and lawmakers in the US and in central and eastern Europe slammed Macron for being soft on Beijing and worryingly critical of the US, especially given that Washington has been a staunch backer of Europe as it deals with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Analysts found the comments particularly ill-timed with China carrying out large-scale military drills in the straits of Taiwan in response to the Taiwanese president’s visit to the US last week….

…the trip also provoked malaise in some quarters for the way the French president was accompanied by a big delegation of business leaders and the announcement of a lucrative deal in China by French jet manufacturer Airbus.


All of this goes to show that with or without the cover of having the EU Commission President at his side, even without public disclosure of the results achieved by the business delegation, Emmanuel Macron was no more successful in avoiding brickbats from other EU Member States, led of course by the Baltics and East Europeans, over his state visit to China than Chancellor Scholz was last November when he took no such precautions to protect Germany’s business interests when meeting with Xi. I note that the deal by Airbus had been announced a week before the trip, presumably to avoid embarrassment during the visit itself. That deal centered on an agreement to set up a second Airbus production line in China, doubling the existing output. It presumably also had a letter of intent to buy a certain number of Airbus aircraft from Toulouse.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/04/11/ ... -to-china/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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