FRANCEtional dock strike called after the British
What does the new government
Steel Corporation (BSC) broke existing agreements in loading iron ore for steel hold in store?
production at the east coast port of
Immingham.
The dockers' union, the Transport and General Workers Union, immediately national strike, judging the
BSC's action as a breach of the hard-won
The Mitterrand government, in power since May 10, 1981, has seen its
Dock Labour Registration scheme. This scheme, which guarantees every docker
The rising levels of unemployment and inflation, while carworkers, whatever the demand for their steelworkers in Lorraine, and shipyard workers struggle to defend their labour, was under attack by the employjobs, are one index of the growing dissatisfaction with this 'government of and government before the miners' the left' among those who voted it into office.
strike started.
The dockers judged cordissatisfactions, with the nuclear energy programme, an imperialist foreign that the miners' strike was the policy, the lack of real progress on women's rights.
most favourable condition under which
However, the issue on which the right have seized to mobilise the opto engage the government in battle in its position to the government has been that of education, the secular (state)
Although the BSC's violation of schools versus the 'free' (Catholic) schools.
ed off the chain of events leading to the change in prime minister and the authorities, the unions continued to seek departure of the Communist Party from the government in mid-July.
a pledge that no further attacks on the scheme would be sought.
A similar challenge existed previously after railworkers had threatened industrial action in pursuit of their wage claim.
Then, in a manoevre that was publicly exposed, Margaret Thatcher persuaded the Railways Board to partially concede the unions' demands in order to avoid a confrontation and so as to isolate the dockers' action prompted the
The president of the Confederation of British
Industry (CBI) to remark that only o per cent of his member companies would be working normally within the next two weeks if the strike continued. Faced with this situation the government would have had only two choices: to surrender and pave the way for victory for the miners too, or to dramatically escalate the dispute by using its powers to bring in the army.
support fragment and dissipate.
The debate on education was provoked by the publication of a new law by education minister Savary. This law proposed integrating the Catholic schools (partially publicly funded) further into the state system by assimilating their staff into the state teachers system. bitterly opposed by right and left alike.
The right saw it as an attack on their 'freedom' to run their schools. The left opposed measures that continued to allocate funds to the Catholic schools. The debate over this law has been one of the most explosive political issues in France. On June 24, one million people demonstrated under the banners of the right against this proposed law.
The declining support for the government has also been demonstrated in the
There have been other - This was the issue that spark results of local and by-elections since the left came to power. The right-wing opposition has won almost all these elections, making sweeping gains in the local elec-
In the June European elections, the left suffered their worst defeat yet on the electoral terrain since their unprecedented success in 1981. Between them, Mitterrand's Socialist Party and the Communist Party won only one-third of the votes. The Communist Party had its lowest score for forty years, per percent, equal to that of the far-right list led by Jean-Marie Le Pen (see International Viewpoint, No 56, July 2, 1984).
This showing led political commentators to talk of the need for a 'new course for the Mitterrand government, of the "handicap' that the Communists represented in the government. Just over one
International Viewpoint 30 July 1984
month later there is a new government team, led by a new prime minister, with the Communists refusing to participate. Does this represent a 'new course' for the government?
The first in the chain of events that led to this shake up was an address to the people of France by Mitterrand on television on Thursday July 12.
The contents of this address were, according to the Paris news weekly Nouvel Observateur, kept secret from everyone but the then prime minister Pierre Mauroy and Socialist Party boss Lionel Jospin.
In this broadcast Mitterrand announced his intention to hold a referendum to change the constitution. The change in the constitution he proposed was to allow the president to hold referendums on other matters than those presently out-
What was it that he wished to submit to the 'will of the people'? The question of education! The Savary law, already passed once through the National Assembly, where the Socialists have a majority even without their Communist partners, would be withdrawn from the order of business in the Senate for the time being, Mitterrand made clear on July 14, but it would only disappear for good once the process of a referendum was
Only one week earlier, Mitterrand had affirmed his intention to not give in to pressure on this question. Such an apparent change in course would need a new team to carry it out. Accordingly, on Tuesday July 17, prime minister Mauroy submitted his resignation, nounced just after education Savary had announced his resignation.
The new prime minister appointed by Mitterrand is Laurent Fabius, former industry minister. Fabius is widely acknowledged to be the 'president's man'. manage to forget that he is a minister,' explains Mitterrand, I always think that he is a member of my enlarged [presidential] cabinet?
The new governmental team appointed by Fabius includes all shades of opinion within the Socialist Party, as well as retaining representation from small parties, Parti Socialist Unifie (PSU) and the bourgeois Movement of Left
The left wing of the SP is represented by Jean-Pierre Chevenement, leader of the left grouping CERES, as education minister, and Pierre Joxe in the interior ministry. The foreign affairs and defence ministers are unchanged
The Communist Party Central Committee met on Wednesday night to consider the offer of four ministerial posts made by Fabius. In a statement issued after this meeting they explained their refusal to accept this offer in the follow-
*Unhappily, we find that the statements of the prime minister do not bring positive answers to the questions we've raised. It turns out that he has decided to continue with a policy of "rigour" [the restructuring of industry]. In the circuminternational Viewpoint 30 July 1984 stances we do not believe that we have the moral right to let the millions of men, women and young people who are battling with disappointments and fears, believe that we could respond to their expectations within the present govern-
(International Herald Tribune, Friday July 20, 1984) At the same time, however, the CP explained it would continue to support the SP in the National Assembly when it sees fit. A new course for the CP?
Thus, the CP would like to portray its departure from the government as a rejection of austerity, a break to the left. The declaration talks of a governmental 'reorientation' that would mean 'increase in unemployment, stagnation of omic activity, a drop in buying power.
The response of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the LCR, French section of the Fourth International, to this statement was to explain:
'Reorientation since when? event, what date, what fact, what measure marks the start of it?
"The CP leadership is right to say that the government's poliey has produced the rise in unemployment and the drop in sounds like a self-criticism! Didn't the CP support all the austerity measures, from the first plan in June 1982? Didn't it go so far as to vote, through its deputies, for the redundancies in steel by voting for the motion of confidence in April
It is clear that the CP hopes, by distancing itself from the government, to regain the credibility it has lost among the workers and to allow its trade-union confederation, the CGT, and its local councillors where it is in control, off the hook of supporting the unpopular anti-working class measures of the government. But, as Rouge points out, this will not be so easy for a party that, since its failure to support the general strike of May-June 1968, has pursued the aim of 'a political coalition of the same nature as that realised in the 1936 Popular Front: toral alliance, based on a reformist programme, for a government that respects the state institutions and the economic
Nor will it attempt to do so 'through leading struggles, but through a tactic aiming to reassert its own political and trade-union identity against that of
What will be the policy of the new government team? French political commentators are beginning to talk of a 'presidentialisation' of the government, Mitterrandism as they talked of Gaullism. As Rouge explained:
"The head of state is using all the resources that the institutions of the Fifth Republic give him. He is using the option of an increased presidentialisation of the regime in order to appear as the symbol of "unity of the French people", and to go round the SP-CP majority in the assembly.
"The terrain of a referendum is care. fully chosen. It's not at all a question of giving increased rights to the people, but of extending the possibilities for president to have recourse to a plebiscite.'
The new cabinet, headed by Fabius, the acknowledged 'favourite son' of Mitterrand and, despite its political spread, also composed of those particularly close to the president, is another sign of this line adopted by Mitterrand. record as industry minister, and thus directly responsible for the restructuring plans for industry that will bring thousands of redundancies, offers no hope to the French workers who have been betrayed time after time by the left government since its election.
The response of the French working class to this new government, as to the previous, must be to struggle, holding back and without mercy, explains
"The struggle against the government, and not only against this or that aspect of its policies, is the only way for the workers to defend themselves against the capitalist offensive for which [the government] is the instrument, and the return of the right, for which it is the springboard.'
Stressing the need for such struggles to be united, Rouge stresses that 'No workers, particularly Communists, must allow the CP leaders to return to putting off, by their sectarianism, as they did in 1977 to 1981, hundreds of thousands of workers who want to act so that their hopes will not be lost. No workers, particularly Socialists, must allow the departure of the Communist ministers to serve as a pretext for an anti-Communist campaign within the unions. perience what would be the these divisive policies: fightback of the workers.'
In conclusion Rouge states:
•What has happened cannot fail to increase the confusion and disarray of the working class. The policies of the SP and CP, alone or together, are obviously bankrupt. However, there is no credible alternative. For many workers the hori-
"The fight for workers' unity and action against the government and the right underlines the necessity for a policy that serves the workers, which thousands of them could make their banner in this
"The debate that is necessary on this policy is already live within the workers movement. Far from running the risk of diverting them from their struggles, such a debate can only contribute to strengthening the confidence of the workers in their own strength and their conviction that they are fighting for something that
"These are the methods and the objectives that the LCR proposes and de-
But there are other forces and other activists who share them. On this basis it is already possible to work together, in action and in the mass movement, to develop an alternative to Stalinism and social democracy. This would be a step forward to the construction of a new, a real, workers party.'
EL SALVADOR went through its first experiences in organizing the for selfpeasant masses defense against the exactions of armed groups created by the landholding oli-
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