Kerryn Williams
Millions of students and workers marched on March 28 against the First Employment Contract (CPE) law, which allows employers to sack workers aged under 26 years without reason during the first two years of their job. The law was approved by parliament on March 10 and then by France's Constitutional Court on March 30.
On March 31, President Jacques Chirac announced the promulgation of the CPE, as thousands of people joined spontaneous protests across France. A March 31 post on Libcom.org reported that hundreds of protesters — mostly high school students — gathered at the Place de la Bastille in Paris during the evening, blocking traffic and listening to a broadcast of Chirac's speech. After the president's announcement, protesters marched through the city, the crowd swelling to several thousand.
In the lead-up to Chirac's speech, students also blockaded high schools in Dijon and roundabouts in the towns of Midi-Pyrenees. In Marseilles, the tourism office was blockaded by arts and cultural workers, and universities across France were disrupted. Train stations were also occupied and railway lines blockaded. Hundreds of high school students blocked the start of the La Roate Adelie cycling race.
In the April 1 British Socialist Worker, Ross Harrold, a teacher at a Paris high school, reported: "Many schools have not only been on strike but have also been occupied or blockaded before being shut down by the authorities...
"In the universities not only has the movement held strong but there is a growing politicisation on the campuses. All sorts of 'commissions' or workshops have been set up to debate economic alternatives, ecology and feminism.
"Films have been shown and mass meetings organised to decide whether blockades should be continued — mass meetings of 1000 or 2000 and in places like Rennes or Poitiers, open air meetings of 4000 and 6000."
A Libcom.org post reported that while Chirac confirmed that he would sign the CPE into law, mass opposition pressured him into offering some concessions during his speech. Claiming the CPE was an "effective tool for employment", Chirac acknowledged the "anxiety" of many students and their parents. "That is why I have asked the government to immediately prepare two modifications to the law on the points which have been at the heart of the debate", he said. "The [trial] period of two years shall be reduced to one year. And if the contract is broken, the right of the young worker to know the reasons shall be written into the new law."
However trade unions and student organisations rejected the compromise, declaring Chirac's announcement was unacceptable and vowing to continue protesting.
Protests have escalated since Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced the CPE in mid-January. Hundreds of thousands of workers and students joined protests in towns and cities across France on February 7, and on March 7 a million people joined a second day of national mobilisations. By then, more than half of the country's universities had been occupied by students. A series of further protests culminated in the largest demonstrations against the law to date on March 28.
Worker and student unions have called for another one-day strike on April 4, followed by a meeting of unions on April 5. A joint declaration issued on March 29 demanded the immediate withdrawal of the CPE and the holding of "immediate negotiations on employment, social insecurity, the terms of access to jobs, education, and the future of young people".
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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