France 2006: a victorious struggle by the French students against the CPE

In 2006, the French government led by Villepin announced its Contrat Première Embauche (‘First Job Contract’ or CPE), a severe attack on the working class. It marked a sudden shift towards greater job insecurity for all young workers. It came on top of the ‘New Employment Contract’ (CNE), adopted the previous year, which aimed to make the employment situation even more precarious for the unemployed returning to work. The bourgeoisie’s aim was clear: to increase labour flexibility, reduce labour costs and put pressure on the entire working class.

Students, joined by secondary school pupils, understood this immediately, and their response was to be devastating. The first demonstrations began on 7 February 2006. It was a short-lived movement (lasting two months), capable of self-organisation, proclaiming the need for solidarity and for the struggle to be extended to all sectors and all generations of the working class – a movement which ultimately forced the government to withdraw its bill on 10 April.

Whilst the working class was still reeling from the ideological campaigns about the supposed end of the class struggle and the definitive triumph of bourgeois democracy, this victory heralded a restoration of the class’s confidence in its own strength. However, the context of a crisis of class identity prevented the immediate application of the valuable lessons emerging from this exemplary struggle.

Extension and self-organisation at the heart of the struggle

The CPE targeted young workers under the age of 26 and allowed them to be sacked during the first two years without the need to give a reason. The Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, announced his draft bill on 16 January and demonstrated his determination to lead the Republic’s attacks. The bill was fast-tracked through parliament and passed as early as 27 February. But he had misjudged the students’ reaction.

Taking advantage of the weak trade union organisation within universities and the poor reputation of the UNEF—a veritable training ground for Socialist Party cadres—the students initially set about forging their own unity. The most militant among them patiently engaged in discussion, without intimidation, with other students at the university gates to demonstrate to them, with supporting arguments, the gravity of the attack and the need to take up the struggle. On 7 March, around twenty universities were on strike. In this drive towards unity, the general assemblies (GAs) played a decisive role. After some initial teething problems, the GAs became the true lifeblood of the movement. These were forums for discussion and decision-making where, to prevent idle chatter and infiltration by trade unions and political organisations, a three-member committee – with a different line-up each day – was appointed to allocate speaking time, alongside committees tasked with preparing the work between GAs. Another of their strengths was their openness to people who are not students. From the outset, the GAs welcomed secondary school pupils who had joined the movement; they also called on university staff – lecturers, administrative staff and technical staff – to take part. But they went far beyond that.

Workers and pensioners, parents or grandparents of students and secondary school pupils involved in the struggle, received a very warm and attentive welcome from the assemblies provided their contributions were aimed at strengthening and expanding the movement. Above all, from the very beginning they sent delegations, not only to other universities to unify the movement and spread its methods, but also to nearby workplaces. Naturally, they came up against union blockades, and this was a rude awakening for the less experienced among them. Yet their determination did not waver. All manner of ways to circumvent this obstacle were discussed at the general assemblies.

The general assemblies then decided to remove from their lists any demands that were exclusively ‘student-oriented’. They subsequently increased the number of slogans calling for solidarity with workers, but not in a passive sense: rather, by calling on them to join them in the struggle. This strategy proved highly successful. On 28 March, the mobilisation reached a record high, with between one and three million demonstrators marching across France. The same slogans were chanted everywhere: “Unity in the struggle of workers from all sectors, of all generations!” In Paris, the students took the lead in the demonstration. They remained there until the end of the movement. The issue of unity and solidarity, which had been at the heart of the general assemblies, spilled over into the demonstrations, which had become the central focus of the movement.

It is true that few workers were on strike, but they organised themselves to attend the demonstrations in the late afternoon or on Saturdays. This unity and solidarity were impressive; the demonstrations spilled out onto the pavements, growing ever larger in number, with everyone keen to join the struggle – a dynamic that was building towards an explosion of strikes. The danger became too great for the bourgeoisie. Faced with the risk of an avalanche of strikes across several sectors, the government was forced to back down. It had to withdraw the bill on 10 April.

This expansion was made possible by the self-organisation of the struggle. The political vitality of the general assemblies (AGs) made it possible to thwart the traps set for them by the bourgeoisie: the trap of spectacular actions aimed at the media, and the trap of violence in the face of the CRS and certain young people from the suburbs who had come to attack students at the demonstrations. The discussions in the general assemblies and the decisions taken made it possible to neutralise these threats.

The weight of the loss of class identity

The struggle of this new generation of proletarians in 2006 forms part of a slow process of resuming struggles following the shock and setback caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Exploiting this fall, ‘democratic’ capitalism had presented itself as the only viable system, whilst the collapse of the USSR (and of Stalinism) in 1991—falsely portrayed as the camp of communism—had heralded the start of an ideological offensive by the bourgeoisie proclaiming the end of the class struggle. This, combined with the difficulties the working class had encountered in politicising its struggles during the 1980s, led to some fifteen years of decline in militancy and class consciousness.

The proletariat was shaken to the core regarding the recognition of its own class identity, no longer seeing itself as a class with common interests. Thus, 2006 confirmed the beginnings of a recovery first observed in 2003 with the mobilisation in the French civil service and the struggles in Austria, and in 2005 in the United States and the United Kingdom. The class was slowly reawakening.

However, the crisis of class identity was by no means over. This explains why very few wage-earning workers went on strike in 2006, and why the students failed to maintain control over the national coordination body that was supposed to centralise the movement[1]. This is why, above all, the lessons of this movement could not be put to immediate use. Concerned by the dangerous example set by the students, the bourgeoisie strove to undermine their message of self-organisation and solidarity. It managed, without too much difficulty, to channel the various movements within the universities – which continued until 2010 – as well as the strikes against pension reform[2]. 

At that time, only the struggle of the Indignados in Spain – which spread to several countries – was inspired by this resurgence. Mass demonstrations and general assemblies recognised the need for self-organisation and discussion in order to come together and understand how to move beyond this system in crisis. However, in these gatherings, the working-class dimension was pushed even further into the background, and ultimately the ideology of Attac and the DRY (Democracia Real Ya) movement—both expressions of the ruling class—prevailed, obscuring the irreconcilable opposition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Towards growing workers’ solidarity and the politicisation of struggles

Today, twenty years after the movement against the CPE, the situation is different. The series of struggles in many countries that followed the ‘Summer of Anger’ in England in 2022 signifies that a new step has been taken towards the restoration of class identity. But a word of caution is needed. Admittedly, the ideological campaigns proclaiming the end of the class struggle and the triumph of bourgeois democracy have lost some of their impact, but the deleterious effects of the period of decomposition – such as the weight of individualism and the destruction of social ties – make it more difficult for workers to achieve unity and solidarity. Society is caught in a maelstrom of self-absorption and nihilism that hinders the struggle for the future. Mass unemployment and the unleashing of warlike barbarism are, for the time being, having a paralysing effect on the working class. On the other hand, it is clear that the self-organisation which triumphed amongst Polish workers in 1980 and amongst French students in 2006 was facilitated, respectively, by the total discrediting of the Stalinist trade unions in Poland and by the weakness of trade union leadership in the universities. Confronting the trade union leadership in most of the core countries will be a much more arduous and protracted process.

Two factors will fuel the struggles to come: massive discontent amongst workers and the still underground development of class consciousness. It is, above all, the economic attacks on the living conditions of the working class that lie at the heart of this dynamic. The military rearmament of all countries in the face of escalating imperialist tensions is forcing the bourgeoisie to abandon all caution in the face of its proletarian enemy. We are witnessing a brutal acceleration of attacks on the living conditions of the working class, and in order to defend itself, the working class will have to reclaim the lessons of 2006 and the whole experience of the workers’ movement. It began to discuss these lessons during the 2023 demonstrations against pension reform in France, as well as, indeed, the events of May ’68.

We can summarise these lessons as follows:

– Workers’ organisation is no longer a prerequisite for the struggle; it emerges during the struggle itself and, through general assemblies, enables the rapid unification of those engaged in the fight.

– The long, corporatist strike has definitively failed, and the trade unions have been co-opted into the state apparatus. A victorious struggle is one that spreads to all sectors as quickly as possible through the dispatch of mass delegations. The struggle for solidarity is waged in parallel with the struggle for unity.

– The media are never an ally of the struggle; they always defend the interests of the ruling class. The pursuit of spectacular, media-friendly actions is a trap.

– The workers’ struggle is, by its very nature, anonymous. It relies on collective organisation and manages perfectly well without leaders or other ‘orators’. This is a source of strength in the face of repression.

– It is not through physical clashes with the forces of repression that the working class can triumph. The priority is to thwart provocations aimed at fruitless confrontations. Even if, ultimately, class violence is inevitable, the greatest strength of the proletariat lies in its unity and its consciousness. It is in this way that it wins over the waverers and undermines the enemy forces.

 

Avrom E, 30 August 2026

 

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[1] Theses on the spring 2006 students' movement in France, International Review 125, in particular footnote 1

[2] See the ‘Resolution on the social situation in France’ in Révolution internationale, no. 451 (March–April 2015).