French students' movement

Last autumn, at the height of the movement against the law on the ‘Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities'(1), 36 universities were ‘disrupted' (in the journalists' terminology) by picket lines, blockades or occupations. These methods have often provoked long and passionate debates inside the general assemblies.

Last week, the government of Sarkozy/Fillon/Hortefeux/Pécresse and consorts (with the silent support of the Parti Socialiste and the various leftists) has crossed the Rubicon of shame and brutality. After the armed pursuit of immigrants across its borders in support of the policy of selecting "immigrants of choice" ("l'immigration choisie"), they are now savagely attacking striking students...

Militants of the ICC were at a number of meetings during October’s Anarchist Bookfair in London, among them one on the students’ struggles in France during spring 2006... Some people who been involved in the struggles in France had come to the Bookfair to relate their experience and give a perspective on the events.

The 17th Congress of the section of the ICC in France took place at the same moment as the movement of the young generation of workers in response to growing uncertainty in employment. The movement of the students against the CPE expressed the highest point reached up to now by the international resurgence of workers’ struggles, which has also just been reconfirmed in Vigo, Spain (see WR no. 295). The class struggle is now entering a new period. Faced with this situation, our organisation, as a matter of priority, had to focus the work of this Congress on the demands posed by such an important situation.

Revolutionary organisations of the proletariat have the responsibility to make a clear and determined intervention in the struggles of the working class. They are also responsible for giving an account in their press of the intervention they have made. Because the ICC was able to identify the proletarian nature of the movement of students against the CPE rapidly, it was able to take part in this first struggle led by the new generation of the working class.

On the site of the GCI under the heading “What’s new ”, dated March 21 2006, there is a leaflet, in French and English, on the anti-CPE movement in France. In this leaflet, the GCI, which often, pretentiously, boasts of developing analyses on the forces present in such and such a country, not only doesn’t say a word on how these events in France unfolded, but, further, it lies about these struggles, it attacks and denounces what has been the strength of the movement: the capacity to organise itself in general assemblies (GAs)...

The recent struggles in France against the attacks of the state are of profound significance for the working class. Not only do such struggles demonstrate positive lessons for workers, they also expose those that pretend to defend workers’ interests. Such pretenders include the Groupe Communiste Internationaliste (GCI - Internationalist Communist Group in English) who produced a leaflet that directly attacks the autonomous struggle of the working class and, backhandedly, defends the attempted union sabotage of it. A comprehensive response to the GCI’s leaflet can be found on the ICC’s website here: 

In recent editions of WR we have reported the revival of class struggle taking place in India today, with examples such as the strikes by Honda and airport workers as clear expressions of the international resurgence of the working class since 2003. In April the ICC held a public meeting in New Delhi in order to take up the lessons of the student movement in France.

The movement of the students in France against the CPE has succeeded in pushing back the bourgeoisie, which withdrew the CPE (First Employment Contract) on 10 April. But if the government was obliged to retreat, it was also and above all because the workers mobilised in solidarity with the children of the working class, as we saw at the demonstrations of 18 March, 28 March and 4 April.

These Theses were adopted by the Congress of the ICC's section in France while the movement was still under way - they place the movement in its historical context and show that, in comparison with May 68, it represents a potentially far deeper development in the consciousness and organisation of the working class.

...The movement of the students in France against the CPE is fully part of this worldwide class upsurge. It has nothing in common with most of the previous cross-class movements of student youth. In the face of a despicable attack on the young generations of workers, an attack which institutionalises job insecurity in the name of fighting against it, the students understood right away that theirs was a class struggle. And here again, the issue of solidarity has been at the very heart of the movement.

Not everyone has accepted the mainstream media coverage of recent events in France. Many people have found that there’s a lot more going on than attacks by riot police and violence at the end of demonstrations. Those who’ve looked further, on the internet, at meetings held by groups like the ICC, or on our website, have been inspired by the students’ level of organisation, by the efforts to extend the struggle to the waged workers and the unemployed, by the discussions in general assemblies, by the will to create an effective movement against attacks on the working class.

In March the ICC held a public meeting in London to discuss the recent student revolts in France. We started with a translation of a text entitled “Greetings to the new generation of workers!” This is now available on our website in English with other texts on the French events which we haven’t got the space to put in the pages of WR.

Mass general assemblies are the heart of the French student's movement, making it possible to generate the solidaity and unity of the whole working class necessary if they are to win against the CPE

For those militants and sympathisers of the ICC who have taken part in the movement during the last few weeks, especially since the demonstrations of 7th March, these have been remarkable, exciting days. We don’t intend here to go into a detailed account of events (we don’t have the time!) but rather to highlight what seem to us to be some of the most significant aspects of the movement. 

This text introduced the ICC public meeting of 11th March in Paris, at which students and militants involved in the recent events debated their experience and the best means for spreading the movement.