Challenges for mass workers’ movement in France’s battle over pensions
www.workers.org
The minister strode up to the microphone, puffed up by his made-to-order suit and $200 haircut. He’ll convince the people tonight that they should work two years longer for everyone’s good, for the good of France. They’ll eat it up. From the back of the crowd he hears a noise. “Clang clang clang.

Like the banker he’s been all his life, Macron is obeying EU orders to make no concessions. However, the French president was unable to win a vote in parliament, even from other pro-capitalist parties, to pass the new pension plan. To impose these cuts on the working class, Macron was forced to use a maneuver in mid-March to pass the plan by decree.

Though this maneuver was technically legal and constitutional (Article 49.3), it was an insult to democratic rule. Workers’ anger exploded. Unionists in France, especially those in the industrial and transport unions who are members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), held periodic walkouts. They stopped transit, held up refining fuel and withheld electric power. They showed just how vital the working class is in capitalist society.

The government’s sole response has been to use the capitalist state to assault the workers’ movement. It has ordered police to beat and arrest demonstrators and judges to keep them in jail awaiting trial and has made it illegal just to protest. Even people just walking near demonstrations have been arrested.

So far, Macron has refused concessions. The workers have refused to submit. The class struggle, instead of softening through some sort of negotiations, has intensified.