The French Stand Up
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 12 June 2016 23:00
- Written by editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1267 .... June 13, 2016
__________________________________________________
The French Stand Up
Richard Greeman
"We've had enough" is the phrase on everyone's lips as -- against all expectations -- the wave of strikes, blockades, disruptions and mass demonstrations begun on May 17th continues to develop throughout France. Indeed, in the past couple of days, two new strategic groups of workers have joined the protest. Technicians at France's nuclear power plants are now cutting back on production of electricity, and the railroad workers have massively joined the street protests while cutting back on trains. Meanwhile, there are long lines at the gas pumps as petroleum workers continue to blockade France's major oil refineries.
Surprisingly, most French people take these inconveniences in good humor, and the polls show broad public support for the movement's... goals and even its disruptive tactics. This popular sympathy is all the more surprising given weeks of blanket negative media coverage, hysterical official statements and police tactics designed to discredit the movement. First the issue was the violence of the "casseurs" (wreckers) on the fringes of the big, peaceful, well-organized mass demonstrations, and the image of one flaming police-car in Paris kept popping up on every channel for days.[1] Then came the threat of the unions (government-subsidized and generally cooperative) taking over the country and destroying the economy. Next, the talking heads topic of the day the police, what a great job they do and how we should support them!
Despite this propaganda campaign, the popular movement continued to grow and public sympathy with it, to the point that the governing Socialist Party split -- making it impossible for the François Hollande administration to push its unpopular Labour Reform Bill through the parliament. The government, which had earlier made a few compromises, became afraid to give in to the majority and loose face, so it evoked paragraph 49-3 of de Gaulle's tailor-made Constitution giving the President the power in emergencies to impose laws by edict, without a parliamentary majority. This high-handedness was the last straw for the democratic French, who had come to detest the anti-labour "reform" bill and the already-unpopular neoliberal "Socialist" government that was shoving it down their throats. That's when all Hell broke loose.