French Workers Face the Crisis

Nick R. Post #9 French Workers Face the Crisis by Leon Cremieux, Translation by Michael Speitz, New Politics Quarterly Vol.XII No.3 Summer 2009

This article is about the labour movement in France. I talks about how the recession is affecting the European Union with a focus on France. The characteristics of the recession in France are similar to the rest of the European Union but the political and social aspects involved differ greatly. With the election of a new president in May of 2007 the political playing field in France began to change. In this article Sarkozy is said to have neutralized his political opponents and now has a free reign within his government. Sarkozy's first act as president was to align himself with the upper class in France. He did this by instituting a tax shield for the wealthy, a reduction of tax for the wealthy and elimination of inheritance tax on real estate purchases. At the same time he refused to honor the traditional minimum raise increase, which had occurred every year on July first. This increase in wages benefits about 17% of the population according to the article. As the economy turned south the French government started to reduce and dismantle French public services and public systems of social protection. (i.e health care) As unemployment went up the French unions had a political stake in the economy. Large companies began closing while the wealthy are protected by tax breaks and incentives. As the public began to get more discouraged the unions called for a strike in January 2009. The turnout was an estimated 2.5 million. The actual number of union members in France is 6-8% in the private sector and 10% in the public sector. Another strike was called on March 19 with a turnout of 3 million and 70% of the French population supporting worker reform.

Organized labour and social control haas been tied together since the advent of buisness. With social unrest on the rise I think it is impresive to get such a large turn out of people for a labour strike. This article shows how the population of a state begin to turn the social tide. Being fed up with the rich getting richer the population made a choice to organize and show their disaproval. There has always been a division of labour. With companies outsourcing from the U.S. to other countries to avoid the high cost of labour, I am glad to see that other countries labour movements still have some guts. The control in this article is that the people are protesting in order to show their support for reform. With the advent of new leadership in France and new reforms benfitting the rich, the working class population is fed up. As recession kicks in and the working class population is losing their jobs, they are feeling most of the affects. It is in their best interest to protest and bring these issues up to their government. Maybe the elected president will want to keep his job, so before the next election he will make changes that benefit the working class.