Political issues in the struggle against Sarkozy ’ s cuts

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Political issues in the struggle against Sarkozy’s cuts

14 October 2010

The October 12 day of action in France has highlighted the powerful opposition
in the working class to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attack on pensions,
including a two-year increase in the retirement age. With another day of action
planned and gasoline shortages developing rapidly due to refinery strikes, there
continues to be mass popular support for strike action against the cuts.
According to opinion polls, 61 percent of the population supports continued
strike action.

The government is proceeding with flagrant contempt for public opinion and
democratic rights. Like Sarkozy’s fascistic targeting of the Roma and France’s
participation in the Afghan war, the pension cuts were rammed through Parliament
despite overwhelming popular opposition. Sarkozy has made clear that he will not
back down, saying he will maintain the cuts “until the end.”

The irreconcilable conflict between the demands of the banks, which dictate
policy to bourgeois governments whether of the nominal “left” or the right, and
the social needs of the working class is emerging as the main feature of
political life. Workers reject the prospect of working for meager wages until
they die. But the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the French government have made clear that this pension cut is only
part of a series of cuts aimed at boosting corporate profitability and
competitiveness and imposing the cost of the bank bailouts on the working class.

Two years after the outbreak of the economic crisis, a political balance sheet
must be drawn. After giving hundreds of billions of euros to the banks,
governments across Europe have forced through social cuts, plant closures and
wage reductions. There has been no lack of popular protest and opposition, yet
the ruling classes have largely been able to impose their will on the working class.

This is due to the treachery of the trade unions and their allied “left”
parties. The first prerequisite for the development of an effective struggle by
the working class is a break with these organizations.

The Parti Socialiste (PS), the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), the
petty-bourgeois Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) and the unions all hold out
hopes that Sarkozy will modify his cuts if enough workers attend protest
actions. This perspective has shown itself to be a dead end for the working
class in France—as in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.

Even as they call protest actions, the unions negotiate the terms of social cuts
with Sarkozy. As for the “left” parties, they all maintain “unity in struggle”
with the PS, a thoroughly pro-business party. This party’s likely 2012
presidential candidate is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, which
last week released a report praising Sarkozy's pension cuts!

A political confrontation is brewing between the working class and this bankrupt
“left” establishment.

In extending their strikes, French workers are striving to break through the
straitjacket of ceremonial, one-day protest actions, by means of which the
unions have sought to contain and dissipate working class opposition. The
ongoing refinery strike shows that the workers have enormous social power, and
growing numbers of workers want to deploy this power against the bankers and the
government.

This brings the workers into an immediate collision with the unions and creates
the conditions for a rebellion against them. It is necessary to strengthen and
broaden this incipient revolt, and arm it with new organizational structures and
a new political perspective.

The World Socialist Web Site proposes that workers build committees of action,
independent of the trade unions, in their workplaces. The goal of these
committees will be to wage a combined industrial and political struggle against
the bosses and the state.

Given the mass popular support for strike action against the cuts and the
political ferment developing among students and other layers of the population,
a central political task of the committees of action is the preparation of a
general strike. The avowed aim of such a strike must be the removal of the
Sarkozy government.

The social and political needs of the people can be met only if the government
that emerges from this struggle is based on the working class and committed to
carrying out a socialist program, including the expropriation of the private
fortunes of the super-rich and the nationalization of the banks and major
corporations and their transformation into public utilities under the democratic
control of the working population.

The financial aristocracy wages class war in a centralized manner, involving the
collaboration of governments, banks, the ECB and the IMF across state lines to
prepare and implement social cuts, mass layoffs and wage reductions.
Notwithstanding the increasingly bitter conflicts between them, all of the
national ruling classes are united in attacking the working class.

Workers' struggles will inevitably be defeated unless they likewise take on a
coordinated, international form. The policies of Sarkozy in France are not
fundamentally different than the austerity policies of governments throughout
Europe and North America. An appeal for international class solidarity by
workers fighting austerity policies in France will receive enormous support
around the world.

The struggle to defend the social conditions of workers in any country is
inseparable from a struggle against nationalism and anti-immigrant prejudice.
All attempts by governments, trade unions and political parties to channel
social opposition along nationalist lines and pit workers in one country against
their counterparts in other countries must be emphatically rejected.

The WSWS calls upon workers in France to broaden and deepen the struggle against
Sarkozy’s cuts, build committees of action to throw off the dead weight of the
unions, and prepare the way for a political struggle for a workers’ government
and the socialist transformation of Europe and the world.

Alex Lantier

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o14.shtml

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