France

In New Year’s Address, French President Macron Pledges To Impose Austerity Despite Mass Strike

January 7, 2020 Alex Lantier, Wsws.org Resist! Austerity, Emmanuel Macron, France, Strikes

In a brief, perfunctory speech on New Year’s Eve, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to impose his pension cuts despite mass strikes and overwhelming popular opposition, which he derided as “pessimism” and “motionlessness.” On January 2, the rail and transport strike against Macron’s pension “reform,” at 29 days, became the longest-running continuous national strike in France since the May 1968 general strike. Over two-thirds of the population opposes the pension cuts, and strikes continue to break out affecting wider layers of the working population...

French Public On Our Side, Says Defiant Union Boss Four Weeks Into Strike

January 3, 2020 Staff, France24.com Resist! Class Struggle, France, Labor Unions, Strikes

The head of a hardline French trade union on Friday vowed to press on with a crippling strike that has dampened the festive season, with the stoppages becoming the longest-lasting such action since the 1980s. The strike against pension reforms championed by President Emmanuel Macron began on December 5 and has seen most of the Paris metro shut down ever since and only a fraction of inter-city trains running. The union stoppage is now longer than the notorious 22-day strike of the winter of 1995 under late president Jacques Chirac, which forced the then government into a U-turn on welfare cutbacks.

French Strike: Electricity Workers Light Poor Homes On Christmas, Cut-Off Power To Police And Big Business

December 31, 2019 By Salvador Soler, Kaosenlared.net Resist! Class Struggle, Electricity, France, Strikes

Since the beginning of the strike on December 5, electricians and energy workers maintain power outages against Macron's pension reform. A method of struggle that exposes the strength of the workers and the strategic place they occupy, with the possibility of paralyzing government buildings and large companies with power outages. While the strike has had a greater impact among workers of the SNCF (railway), the RATP (metropolitan transport company in Paris), the National Education or even health, energy workers are not far behind.

Postcard From Paris

December 26, 2019 By James Graham, Counterpunch.org Resist! France, Pensions, Reform, Workers Rights and Jobs

“For over two years we’ve been hearing about this pension reform! Two years of ‘consultations,’ which, cross our hearts, were to be full to the brim with transparency, intelligibility and instruction. Two years enshrouded in a haze – not to say a dense fog – of a strategy which, playing for time with contradictions, altered estimates and impossible-to- reconcile positions, end up with a strike that looks set to last. Two years supposed to reassure us but which, au contraire, have only caused anguish and sent diverse age groups and trades not among the first concerned with the reform down to the street.”

French Union Workers Vote To Halt Production At Key Oil Facility

December 24, 2019 Sudip Kar-Gupta, Bate Felix, Reuters Resist! France, General Strike, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

French workers voted on Monday to halt production at a key oil facility that supplies Paris and the surrounding region, joining other petroleum industry shutdowns in a nationwide strike against government pension reforms. Industrial action against President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms has also crippled train services over the past two weeks, escalating into clashes between protesters and police in the capital earlier on Monday. Protesters scuffled with police at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris early on Monday as the strike went into its 19th day. The strike, which has disrupted Christmas preparations, has also affected other main Paris stations such as the Gare du Nord, which handles Eurostar services to London and Brussels, and the Gare de l’Est.

France Strike Update: “Prepare The General Strike!”

December 23, 2019 Staff, Socialistorganizer.org Resist! Class Struggle, France, Labor Unions, Strikes

More than a daily newspaper, Le Monde is an institution of the Fifth Republic. In this capacity, the paper is always on the look-out for the slightest signal that indicates the re-establishing of capitalism’s “order”…in other words, an end to the strike action. So it was delighted to feature this headline today, 20 December: “Pensions reform: the government causes a crack in the trade union front before Christmas”.

France Records 391-Mile Traffic Jam As Public Transport Brought To Halt By Third Week Of Strikes Over Pension Changes

December 19, 2019 Staff, Itv.com Resist! Class Struggle, France, Pensions, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

A traffic jam of 391 miles was recorded on the outskirts of Paris on Monday morning as fresh strikes over pension changes brought public transport to a standstill in France for a third week. President Emmanuel Macron’s government appeared determined to push ahead with its plans despite the French transport strikes causing widespread disruption as they enter their twelfth day. In the Paris region only two Metro automated trains with no drivers were fully running as the other 14 metro lines remained closed or only very partially running.

French Strike Wave Keeps Going, Government Is Wavering

December 13, 2019 Staff, Socialistorganizer.org Resist! Class Struggle, France, Reform, Strikes

In the hours following the Prime Minister’s presentation of the “final version” of his counter-reform, the workers’ reaction has been unanimous: complete rejection! Nobody is being fooled by the attempts to create division between the generations, between public sector and private sector, between the “general scheme” and “special schemes”. Nobody is being fooled by the so-called concessions either. “Points-based pensions, we don’t want them! Public sector, private sector, on strike, united for withdrawal” – this was shouted by thousands of protestors demonstrating in Lyon this morning, 12 December.

France: Strikes Urging The Withdrawal Of The Pension ‘Reform’ Draft Law Continue

December 10, 2019 Staff, Socialistorganizer.org Resist! Class Struggle, France, Pensions, Reform, Strikes

This morning, 9 December, the record for traffic jams on the Île-de-France [1] road network was broken. The images of those 600-plus kilometres of roads blocked with traffic, and of travellers crammed together on train platforms or not even able to push their way into Metro stations demonstrate the depth of the rejection, the depth of the strike action that began on 5 December. The governing power is destabilised. [Prime Minister] Edouard Philippe’s speech last Friday evening can be summarised as follows: reconsidering a points-based pension system is out of the question...

Hong Kong Reporters Injured At Protests – In France

December 9, 2019 Alex Lo, Scmp.com Educate! France, Hong Kong, Journalism, Protests, Repression

It’s always good for reporters to have a chance to work overseas, even if it’s just on a temporary assignment. It broadens your professional experience and mental horizon. Sadly, reporting duties sometimes come with a price. Of the six reporters sent by Hong Kong Golden, an online forum, to cover the nationwide protests in France, four have been injured just days after arrival. Two were reportedly injured by sting grenades used by French anti-riot police; one was allegedly pepper-sprayed and then kicked by an officer; and another suffered a sprain while running away from a protest scene.

French Unions And Yellow Vests Converge In General Strike Today

December 5, 2019 Richard Greeman, Popular Resistance. Resist! France, Unions, Worker Rights, Yellow Vests

Montpellier, France - On the eve of an “unlimited” (open-ended) General Strike called for Dec. 5, more and more unions and protest groups are pledging to join in. Two things are unusual about this strike. The first is that it is open-ended, rather than the usual one-day ritualistic protest marches, and it may be prolonged from day to day by workers’ assemblies as long as necessary. The second is that the Yellow Vests, the self-organized, horizontal, social movement that sprung up spontaneously just over a year ago and is still popular despite severe repression, have decided to converge with the strike. Just as surprising, Philippe Martinez Secretary General of CGT, France’s largest union federation, who had originally spurned the Yellow Vests, immediately welcomed them, making for a heady mix.

Build Independent Committees Of Action For Political Struggle Against Macron

December 5, 2019 Anthony Torres, WSWS.org. Organize! Democracy, France, Worker Rights, Yellow Vests

France - Today’s strike against pension cuts in France will mark a major escalation of the class struggle. A year after the eruption of the “Yellow Vest” protests against social inequality, the government has only intensified the attacks on the working class. Now rail, transit, airline, hospital, energy and port workers, together with students and lawyers groups, will strike and march. The strike has the support of two-thirds of the public, polls show, including 74 percent of manual workers and 70 percent of public-sector workers. It is part of a vast international resurgence of the class struggle this year. In Chile, Bolivia, Hong Kong, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria and beyond, workers and youth are mobilizing in protests driven by opposition to obscene levels of social inequality.

Macron Facing The “December 5th Wall”

December 4, 2019 By Daniel Cirera, Portside.org Resist! Class Struggle, France, Strike

Tuesday, November 19. Dinner at the Elysée. The President brings together the close circle of ministers and parliamentarians. No more hesitation: the pension reform will be implemented. Everyone must be on a war footing. There's no way we're going to be impressed. We had to give in, back off in front of the yellow vests, drop a little bit on the hospital. For the students, we'll wait. This time, it passes or breaks. It has to pass. The next day the offensive was launched: parliamentarians, ministers and the First in the lead, attacked the media.

A Story Of Police Violence In France

November 23, 2019 Ross Domoney, Roarmag.org Resist! France, Gilets Jaunes, police brutality, State Violence, Yellow Vests

ROAR is proud to present a powerful new independent documentary that tells the story of three lives affected by police violence in France during the popular uprising of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement. Mutilations and deaths through so-called “sub-lethal” riot control weapons have become all too common in the modern day Republic. Two dozen people lost the use of an eye from LBD (flashball) rubber bullet launchers, and five people have had their hands blown off by military grade grenades thrown by the police at the protesters.

French Yellow Vests Celebrate First Birthday Converge With Planned Labor Strikes

November 19, 2019 By Richard Greeman, Popular Resistance Resist! France, Yellow Vest

This weekend the Yellow Vests celebrated their first birthday, with convivial barbeques on traffic circles (roundabouts) all over France followed by direct actions like liberating tollbooths. Although number of protestors has declined to about 10% of the estimated 400,000 who rose up a year ago on Nov. 17, 2018 – thanks to a year of violent police repression, media distortion, and sheer fatigue –– a surprisingly large number of women and men throughout la France profonde (“middle France”) came out of ‘retirement’ and donned their yellow vests for “ACT 53” of the weekly Yellow Vest drama – double the previous weeks’ numbers. Recent polls indicate that 10% of French people consider themselves “Yellow Vests,” and two-thirds still support them (although a majority wish they would go home!)

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