Democracy and unity to take up slogans challenging Chirac's
"security"
politics, the government's racist measures and their initiatives on the drugs question.
mark student strikes
Q. What does the Devaquet law actually propose, and how does it fit into the government's project?
A. It's important to grasp that the proposals in this law mark a real break from previous policies. universities proposed by the bourg. eoisie in France have been reforms
THE FOLLOWING interview was done at the height of the student strike, before the government withdrew the proposed law. Sue Pierey talked to Christophe, a student at Tolbiac and member of the Jeunesses Communistes Revolutionnaires (JCR). He is a member of the committee at his faculty, which has been one of the most active during the struggle.
How exactly did start? After The movement started towards the end of October with the strike action in all the universities. After this, the next notable move was that the students started to organize response to a national launched by the students at Caen, which was signed by 2,000 students.
The students at Villetaneuse were the first to go on strike. This was followed by a rapid extension of the movement - first to the bulk of the Paris universities and then to most of the provinces.
It is important to understand that although many people were surprised by the movement, there had already been several indications that it would be possible. In June, another law had been proposed by the right and the far right, putting forward an even more extreme "liberalization" of the universities. (1) In spite of the fact that this was right in the middle of the exam period there were some very big mobilizations in the provinces which paved the way for the response in the new academic year.
To understand why this generation has gone into struggle it is important to remember that they are the same generation who participated in SOS Racisme, the anti-racist movement, when they were lyceens [high school students]. They have, therefore, already had some experience of collective action, and it is to this experience that you can trace the confidence and ability to organize that you find today at the university level.
Although this generation saw 1981, it wasn't old enough to vote in that 6
So, it didn't suffer as strongly generation that preceded it from the betrayals of the government - with all the resulting disarray and disorganization. What stands out about this generation, in contrast, is its complete rejection of the first measures of the right-wing government — whether it's a question which were introduced as part of the anti-terrorism campaign, or the governcriminalize drug Even if the movement is concentrated on the single issue of
Devaquet project, it is also an expression of a much larger groundswell of reaction by youth to the Chirac government over the last
Q. How did the movement spread to the lycees?
The movement in the lycees incredibly quickly. the beginning students spontaneously went to the school gates to explain what is contained in the law, because it concerns the lycees directly. It challenges the Baccalaureat as the qualification for access to university, and one proposal from Rene Monory [the education minister] would create two types of "Bac" - one for the elite, and one which no longer guaranteed a place in higher education.
It was noticeable that in the lycees the dynamic of the movement was much more rapid, even if its strueturing was more hesitant. Very soon it was the lyceens themselves who took charge of their activities and set up their own strike committees and coordination, and we saw the massive mobilization of lyceens in the streets.
intended to adapt the universities to the needs of capitalism in crisis -but this has been by tinkering peripherally rather than attacking the essential organization of the system.
### Devaquet proposals opened the door to a break with this previous attitude. It seems to me - although I don't know the precise
- very similar to what has happened in Britain in terms its practical consequences. In Britain there has been a reduction of 20,000 in student numbers in four years
La dramatic cut in education spending under Margaret Thatcher. The Devaquet law fits into the overall project of the bourgeoisie of making
The central axes of the proposals are first the raising of tuition fees, and second the undermining of the nationally recognized status of a degree, with the consequent introduction of competition between degrees from different universities and competition between students. Thirdly it would mean selection within the universities, particularly after the second year. And finally, it would introduce selection for entry to university, no longer automatically recognizing the Baccalaureat on its own as sufficient qualification.
There is a coherence to all these measures. It is the destruction of the present character of the universities and its replacement on the one hand with universities for the elite with high fees, selective degrees and big business sponsorship, and on the other hand "dustbin universities" offering lesser qualifications for the mass of students.
This reform comes at a time of real crisis in the universities. In France, as in the majority of indus-
The term "liberalization" means essentially the free-enterprise politics of the right. relation to the universities, these proposals included selection of students entering higher education, increased links between the universities and private business, and so on. International Viewpoint 22 December 1986
unionized and nor trialized countries, there was a boom th ts.
That is to say in student numbers in the '50s and like organizations
'60s. The figures show that this rise union organization made stopped by the was completely members, ist
Party and that a stagnation has crisis, of revoluwith ensued - so that student numbers have either followed demographic trends or regressed in some countries.
From this point of view the
Devaquet project is an adaptation of the capitalist the universities to crisis instead of an attempt to deal with the real problems that already
"social selection".
exist, such as
It is worth noting that in France the son of a worker has two and a half times less chance than the son of a middle-manager of going to general university.
Q. It's 15 days now since your faculty, Tolbiac, came out on strike.
What's been happening here over the last two weeks?
A.
I am one of five delegates elected to the committee of Tolbiac, a faculty which is made up of a total of 15,000 students, and where the strike is overwhelmingly supported.
In Tolbiac, as in other faculties, there is a very strong desire by the students to participate in building the mobilizations and to control the demon-
The meeting decision-making process.
There has been a very high level of participation in all the commissions that we've set towns up. In the main our structures have been concerned with examining what sort of university we want beyond to the
Devaquet proposals, and the of a strike setting up committee representing all the students.
was
We've got what, in my opinion, is a very democratic way of functioning. There is a general assembly every day which takes reports from the commissions.
The students vote on all the principal issues, and on continuing the strike. For 15 days the strike has been voted now with a huge majority through
- about 80 percent of the students at
Tolbiac.
600,000 for
How are the students organized
Q.
on a national level?
it
At this was national level what is
At the
A.
most striking is the reproduction place.
on a large scale of the structures in each of the universities.
There is a very strong desire for unity among all the students. So people wanted to problems of set up a structure that the majority of students, whether unionized or not, could take part in and exercise control question was this over.
Nationally each college set up a strike committee and a general assembly.
They then elected delegates, with very precise mandates and the
A lot of articles in the press possibility of being recalled at any have pointed to a distrust of politics students time, to the national Student Coordinaand the among tion of the movement.
This body their dissimilarity with emphasised
International Viewpoint 22 December 1986
The
A.
organizations to seemed to them.
economic crisis, an there involved.
In
France ideological especially
'60s.
But they moment?
real, but it have often
With the antiwe are beginning and the high unwhich weighs youth, who tried to themselves to dis-
International Viewpoint 22 December 1986
PHILIPPINES small groups of people.
Even the state machinery is operainterests of the ting to protect the capitalists rather than the workers.
The bias is always against the workers.