FRENCH youth are in no mood to give up fighting for their employment rights.
They are vowing to continue their blockade of universities and high schools through the Easter holidays – unless the government meets an April 17 deadline set by French unions on Wednesday to withdraw the ‘hire and fire’ Contrat Premiere Embauche (CPE).
The coalition of trade unions and student organisations says that nothing is ruled out if the government does not revoke the ‘first job contract’, which allows employers to fire young people under 26 without reason.
On Tuesday more than three million workers and youth took to the streets of France, including the biggest demonstration in Paris so far of up to one million people, during the second general strike against the government’s measures.
This was despite claims by French President Jacques Chirac – who signed the CPE into law a week ago – that the law had been watered down, so that young people can be fired without reason in the first year of the contract, instead of two, with companies required to state their reasons for firing youth.
In negotiations on Wednesday, the unions said that the ruling right-wing party the UMP had ‘nothing to say’ to them and the struggle would continue.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing candidate for the French presidency next year and UMP leader – who has vowed to ‘clean up’ the working-class French suburbs where youth rose up last autumn – has put himself forward as the saviour of the situation.
Sarkozy has appealed to disenchanted middle-class voters, vowing to ‘bring order’ to France if elected president, and on Wednesday he said that France’s political system was ‘exhausted’ and in urgent need of reform.
His rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin – author of the CPE – told the French parliament on Wednesday that he would ‘draw the necessary conclusions’ from the failure of the negotiations with the unions, organised by Sarkozy.
All the French trade union federations have joined with the youth in the anti-CPE uprising.
Even the most conservative workers’ organisations are completely opposed to the law.
Claire Krepper, from the UNSA teachers’ union, said as Tuesday’s massive Paris march assembled at Place de la Republique: ‘We are very worried about the future for young people.
‘We don’t believe that more “employment flexibility’’ can help, quite the contrary indeed.
‘What we think is the CPE won’t help young people without qualifications to find a job and it will be a threat for those young people who do have proper qualifications and now can’t get a proper job contract.
‘I think we will go on with the strike,’ she said.
‘Of course we are worried about the end of the school year and the exams, so we hope that a solution will be found very quickly.
‘But if we have to, we’ll go on with the strike and the demonstrations.
‘But we believe the CPE is already dead. Chirac is just trying to save face at the moment on this issue.’
She added: ‘I belong to a reformist union and our aim is not to change the economic system, but certainly we want to defend the gains workers have won in France.
‘The market economy should make room for human beings!’
Arthur and Fanny, both aged 20, students from Jussieu, the central Paris university that has been blockaded for many weeks now, were typically determined to win the struggle.
‘We are going to continue the fight until the withdrawal of the CPE,’ they said.
‘The government don’t want to listen to us.
‘Chirac and De Villepin and Sarkozy forgot the job of the government is to work for us – but instead they work for the employers.
‘They have the money, the people in the street don’t.
‘The people in the street are continuing the struggle that was begun by the youth in the banlieues (suburbs) last year.
‘Why do they burn the cars? It’s because they don’t have any money.
‘The government imprisons them and now the government wants to make young people from 14 years old work at night. It’s absolutely crazy.’
The two students added: ‘We are three million in the streets last Tuesday and today we are even more – five million today – because a lot of people are angry with the government, because they have refused to listen to us.’
Romaric, a student from Evry, a suburb in southern Paris, said: ‘The trade unions are beginning to talk to Sarkozy. I think they must continue the struggle until the withdrawal of the CPE.
‘I am for socialism rather than capitalism.’
Kader, 19, Sidi, 19 and Kama, 18, working-class youth from the French capital, said: ‘The struggle will continue until the withdrawal of the CPE. We want a workers’ socialist republic.’
Griselda, 21, a student from Censier University (Paris 3), said: ‘I am a militant syndicalist. I believe in international socialism.
‘I am a Trotskyist. I think the struggle must continue until the government is defeated.
‘The problem is the bureaucracy which tries to control the movement.
‘But they can’t control it any more. They are not in control.
‘I want a revolution. I think the youth of France would love a revolution, but they need a class consciousness.
‘When this movement finishes, everyone will ask themselves where next?
‘At this moment a unity exists between workers and students.
‘I want the unions to call an indefinite general strike until the CPE is withdrawn.
‘One-day actions are not enough.
‘The only solution is a general strike until we win.
‘We want real equality, but we will only get that with a revolution.
‘Defeating the CPE is not enough. We need a socialist society.’
