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French Unions: We Won't Pay For 'Failures of Global Finance'
French Police, Strikers Clash Ahead of Pension Vote
PARIS – French riot police tear-gassed workers trying to block a fuel depot and broke up a picket at a key refinery serving Paris on Friday, hours before the Senate votes on fiercely-contested pension reforms.
French striking railway workers demonstrate over pension reform in Paris October 21, 2010. France faced another day of strikes and confrontation on its streets on Thursday as the government grappled to restore fuel supply with senators just a few days away from voting on pension reform. The banner reads "renewable strike". (REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes) Police used tear gas to repel 200 demonstrators trying to block a
fuel depot before dawn near the southern city of Toulouse as part of
protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy's bid to hike retirement age
to 62, unions said.
Police moved in a few hours later to clear the entrance to Grandpuits refinery, which serves the Paris region, after an emergency decree ordered strikers there back to work. Three people were injured, unions said.
Fuel distribution firms warned that their plans to resupply filling stations would take longer than planned, but the government insisted that as yet it has no plans to introduce petrol rationing.
Turmoil continued around the country, as students staged another day of protests, workers stepped up fuel depot pickets and unions called two more days of mass strikes and street rallies for next week and the week after.
Hundreds of riot squad officers stood by in Lyon to try to prevent a repeat of Thursday's violence that saw security forces fire water cannon and fight running battles with rampaging youths in the east-central city.
Transport Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said fuel shortages had eased but one in five petrol stations was still without supplies as many families prepared to go on holiday when schools shut Friday for a mid-term break.
For two months France has been in the grip of a wave of protests against Sarkozy's bid to raise retirement age from 60 and the age at which retirees can get full pension payments from 65 to 67.
The protests have become the biggest battle of the right-wing president's mandate and he has staked his credibility on a reform he says is essential to reduce France's public deficit.
The bill has been moving through parliament and Labour Minister Eric Woerth said it would be approved in a Senate vote "in the coming hours", clearing the last major hurdle, which means it could become law as early as next week.
"The law is the law, so the protests, the discontent, the concern ... should end the moment the law is voted," he told France 2 television.
But unions, who say the reforms unfairly penalise workers for the failures of global finance, showed no sign of easing their campaign to bring Sarkozy, whose poll ratings are at an all-time low, to the negotiating table.
On Thursday, at the end of another day of clashes between youths and police in cities across France, unions called for workers to join two new days of nationwide demonstrations next Thursday and on November 6.
"Strengthened by the support of workers, the young and a majority of the population ... the labour organisations have decided to continue and to broaden the mobilisation," the main labour groups said in a joint statement.
More than a million people took to the streets on Tuesday, the sixth day of nationwide action since early September.
An opinion poll published Friday by the BVA institute and broadcast by Canal Plus television, showed that most French voters back the strikes, by a margin of 69 percent to 29 -- but 52 percent oppose the blockade of refineries.
Charles Foulard, head of the powerful CGT union in the refinery sector, insisted the goal of the blockade was not to "paralyse the country" but was "a cry for help to the government to open negotiations."
France's 12 oil refineries have been disrupted by the strikes.
Transport Minister Borloo said the police operation at Grandpuits was not designed to restart refining but to gain access to fuel already stocked there.
In Marseille civil defence troops have been sent in to clear rubbish from the streets of the Mediterranean port where garbage collectors are on strike, and in Toulouse intensified workers are blocking access to dumps.
Rubbish was starting to pile up in some areas of Paris too due to strike action by garbage collectors.
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105 Comments so far
Show AllVive la France!
The real rubbish are the men who perpetrated the fraud that caused the world economic system to collapse. These men on Wall Street, and those who took part around the world, and those who were complicit and didn't speak up, should be held accountable. The French Unions are correct -- "we the people" should NOT have to pay for their avarice or to subsidize their crimes.
Oui Oui, Vive les travailleurs de la France!
I am pleased that CD has posted a couple of article covering this important issue.
Workers must not be stuck with the bill while the Banskter Mafia get away with trillions.
"I am pleased that CD has posted a couple of article covering this important issue." -- socialist
Me, too!
"Il faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace" -- Georges-Jacques Danton,
you are so right about that. there is a good article on cd about taking bank of america and other banks into receivership for the massive levels of fraud they have committed and are now doing again with the forclosures. these scumbags are forclosing on people's homes based on fraud! what is happening in france should be happening here.
matt
harris county green party
Those are not "men" they are monsters. The rest of us take offense to your indiscriminate use of the word. :-)
Vive les travailleurs de France!
Au diable les banquiers du monde!
q
This smells of CLASS STRUGGLE. The rich get richer and the poor and middle class get poorer. On Wall Street the bankers give themselves 140 billion or so in bonuses while people lose jobs and homes.
Some "recovery"!
shach,
It is a recovery, but only for the rich! $Trillions were being lost by sovereign investors in the private and totally unregulated "equity markets" until the taxpayer bailouts came along and saved their f-king asses while ours are being destroyed by these predators!
God, you should see the Teabaggers crying on any Yahoo forums about the French. The French have the kind of guts I only wish Americans had. The people would have been in the streets (ALL of the people) on December 12, 2000 if that had been the case. Instead, we sit in front of our big-screen teevees worshiping the crap on Fox and letting our country be run by outright thieves.
killers
I cannot believe the French are the only ones that realize that the concept of a global economy is a very bad idea. A very bad idea that the younger generations will come to realize just how bad it is. It will be.
Younger generations, not being able to find jobs that pay what would have been a wee bit more than half of what minimum age when their parents were young (adjusted for inflation) are fully aware of it, unfortunately the "baby boomer" generation still has all the political power, both due to sheer numbers and also amount of money and ownership of real property.
"younger people" unfortunately are a minority and cannot do anything until baby boomers either wake up or die off.
The headline says it perfectly. The French people kick ass. Screw you, Sarkozy. I must visit there in the next few years...
Of course the reich-wing in America are claiming 'this is the danger of socialism' - the Orwellian doublespeak never stops from them, naturally.
"But unions, who say the reforms unfairly penalise workers for the failures of global finance, ..."
I got news. It's not just the failures of global finance that unfairly penalise workers. Exploitation is the very foundation for the system itself.
Well, maybe not news exactly. It was all laid out a long time ago in a book entitled Das Kapital.
Kind of amusing that Americans love to ridicule the French for being pussies.
When the French people are being ripped off by the oligarchy, they stand up and fight. When it happens to Americans, they curl their tails up between their legs and take their beating like the frightened dogs they are. And after quietly taking their beating by the upper class, they go back to calling the French a bunch of spineless punks.
Home of the brave, indeed.
They are jealous and they hate themselves for being pussies whose closets are filled with guns and amo.
Home of the coward, land of the freak. Americans are embarrassing.
They love to drop bombs on innocent civilians from 10,000 ft. but when it's time to fight, any kind of fight, they hide. Then have the balls to call other people pussies.
France has given the world a history full of class struggle, amazing art and culture, Voltaire, Descartes, Rousseau, Bizet, Ravel, Debussy, Monet, Renoir, Moliere, Goddard, Truffaut, not to mention high fashion and cuisine. Americans? The Brady Bunch, OJ Simpson, two atomic bombs, white phosphorus and John Ashcroft singing Let the Eagle Soar.
You forgot to mention radical modern thinkers like André Breton (head of the Surrealist group), Jean-Paul Sartre (existentialist philosopher who backed the '68 rebellion), Pierre Bourdieu (sociologist) and many more. What's perhaps most encouraging about the current protests is that the people are doing it despite the absence of intellectual leaders of the calibre of these.
Godard, on the other hand, has grown stale with time, and in any case, he's originally Swiss.
I differ in opinion about Godard -- but, each to his or her own.
Godard was actually born in Paris on December 3, 1930.
Well, part Swiss, then. But his films are unwatchable, except for 'A bout de souffle,' his first. Forcés, prétentieux, sans art. I used to like them in my youth, when I too was pretentious and artless. He's probably the worst of the nouvelle vague, which itself hasn't aged so well, except for Truffaut and Resnais, whose work remains timeless.
Yes, don't forget Sartre. I visited his grave (in the Montparnasse cemetery south of the Latin Quarter) a few times last month and found it as popular as Jim Morrison's. I felt his spirit in the strikes, a kind of courage fueled by the existentialist idea that there are no excuses. Existentialists must assume responsibility, and collectively assuming responsibility can be a powerful force.
Echoing another commenter, that ever-present reminder of history is essential. The Pantheon, especially, serving as a monument to democracy and uprising, sits beside the Sorbonne (I couldn't think of a single American university that has that constant reminder of where we have been). Ironically, it was supposed to be a church but was transformed for good reason, yet it's a most sacred place.
I'm not so ready, however, to dismiss US culture, even if I was reminded by staying in the Montparnasse neighborhood that quite a few of our best writers had escaped to Paris, including my favorite Richard Wright.
"I felt his [Sartre] spirit in the strikes, a kind of courage fueled by the existentialist idea that there are no excuses." -- sherry
I agree! During the 1968 protests, he was out in the streets with everyone else. He believed in anarchy -- that systems need to be shaken up whenever possible.
Paris, and in turn, France, has been a refuge for countless U.S. writers and musicians, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound -- from the world of music/jazz, the names would include Josephine Baker, Cole Porter, Bricktop, Blossom Dearie, Benny Waters, and so many others.
delia -- great list of French thinkers, composers, artists, etc.!
I would add that the French have also given us Simone de Beauvoir, Agnes Varda, Agnes Jaoui, Alain Resnais -- just to add a few of my influences.
From Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 film, Le Gai Savoir (The Joy of Learning): "I want to learn to teach myself, to teach everyone that we must turn back against the enemy that weapon with which he attacks us: LANGUAGE."
I actually searched for the footage of the French New Wave directors marching arm-in-arm, carrying a huge banner, during the 1968 protests. It's a beautiful sight -- but I couldn't find it. I'll keep looking!
WELL-freaking-SAID!! Amen. And don't forget waterboarding and the Happy Meal :)
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
I can agree with you on part of your comment however, as an American I can assure you that we are far from cowards. The American people have been betrayed by those they entrusted with power and they have not yet found a way to fight those powerful foes. I believe that the French are leading by example but remember the French have a long history of revolting against their government. The question is what will happen when the Americans begin to revolt against the traitors? Will the world shake? will the world be ready to deal with such madness? Remember the U.S has the most powerful military on earth, can we afford a revolution? Its the equivalent of giving dynamite to a baby, what do you think the end result will be?
pablo30: You say that Americans aren't cowards, then you compare American society to a baby. Make up your mind.
Also, try to recognize the fear that underlies what you wrote, and eliminate it. Fear keeps citizens subservient.
It sounds like you are afraid
The French still have viable labor unions fomenting rebellion. Americas' unions, by design, have been decimated the last thirty years.
That's because in France most Unions are small, wheras in America we have giant international corporate unions, beholden to none,, not even their membership.
SEIU sells us out again in California.
>^^<
Think things are bad in the US military now! Wait till after the Cat Food Commission Report; and they have to come home to fight US. When they officially steal our SSI money, the Sheeple will be out in the streets!
>^^<
you ALL forgot Guy Debord, how dare you!
November 2010 = May 1968?
Yes, obviously the French people don't know the first thing about how cheese-eating surrender monkeys are supposed to act.
Unless... unless all along it's been the AMERIKANS who are the pasteurized processed cheese-food eating surrender monkeys!
Say it ain't so, Caleb!
And whatever you do, don't tell mightymite about this!
As talked about in another thread, the Civil Service unions in France refused to be bribed, when they were. In the U.S. bribing the unions is an easy thing, as I wrote about extensively on another thread. In France unions are marching solid with the rest of the workers. In the U.S. all you have to do -- as Obama did with HCR -- is tell the unions they'll be exempt and they immediately fold and follow like sheep, and pour millions into Dem election coffers.
God, I really admire the spirit and solidarity of the French worker. They put us to shame.
STOP IT
To embolden our American brothers and sisters we must encourage them and show solidarity, not insult them.
en-courage
to give courage to
Insults only serve to reinforce the power base of the capitalists.
We, know. Most of us do anyway. most who were happy to go along with the union's leadership. Spend for Obama! Spend for HCR! and now many are starting to wakeup and ask what did I get? The membership gets nothing, meanwhile the fatcats at the union hall are toasting another victory.. Behind locked doors of course.
The "Victory" is you might ask? Three more years with their hands in our pockets! Oh and because pay is down 15% we'll need to increase dues.
>^^<
♦ ~ ♦ ~ ♦
"Home of the brave"
wait! that's my favorite line and not only because we get to take our seats, either. it's the imagery, you see. the line about "bums bursting in air" is truly amusing, but i join in only for that closing line, "home of the brave" as i visualize a huge contingency of stalwart native americans!
aydidididididdrrrudya!
Vive la France! Foutez Sarko au cimetière de l'histoire.
I'm thinking "Freedom fries" will be making a comeback in the States soon.
French and Freedom are looking more and more synonymous as well as being alliterative.
All Power to the People.
The French are fighting for all of us as were the Greeks.
Did the Greeks lose?
The English seem to be acquiesing to their debasement for the benefit of the uberrich.
In the USA the poor fools facilitate their own impoverishment.
Don't give up on the Limeys-that game is just getting started. Whatever they do will be more than we do. We are a nation of absolute wimps.
The French leaders are good at surrendering, and the French citizenry are good at complaining about it. If the French citizens win this battle, it will change my opinion of France, but that hasn't happened yet.
Sitting on your hands while Rome burns, so to speak, is NOT an option. Just a few short years ago, the French authorities passed a law to make it easier to fire people. The French people -- all ages -- hit the streets, and remained in the streets until the law was retracted. This time, even more is at stake.
brainy, have you heard of something called the French Revolution? Was that just about 'complaining'? Get real.
Like the 'true revoluntiaries' of France alive for the French revolution had nothing to do with the French 'surrender monkeys' who lived through the world wars, the French people today may soon be getting a new reputation, something like 'stalwart middle class'. That is, if they can pull off this reform.
That's what they say on US TV at least. What a great source of information.
You are still clinging to the illusion that the US saved Europe. Like so many illusions Americans suffer from, this one doesn't go away. The French fought through the resistance and via De gaulle. They surrendered because they lost against a superior enemy that was defeated by the immense sacrifice of the Soviets who lost more than 20 million people and managed to defeat the Germans while Americans just did a little mopping up.
They lost against an enemy that was getting financing and armaments courtesy of the USA... But they NEVER gave up.
In 1917 the Frency Army Mutinied. This was not because they were "Cowards" or "Surrender Monkeys" it was because the enlisted men ahd MORE courage then the enlisted men of the other armies.
The French had fought the Germans to a bloody draw at Verdun, one of the bloodiest battles of the Entire war.
They mutinied because they thought the attacks being ordered by the French High Command were futile, accomplishing nothing and just sending men to their Certain deaths so that Generals could claim Glory.
They were not refusing to FIGHT. They were refusing to fight in the manner being dictated by their SUPERIORS.
In the great tradition of the CITIZEN army they felt their bodies and minds were their OWN and not property of the State to be disposed of wantonly in war.
Where many Military Historians condemn the mutinies as Cowardice, I commend them. Armies that fail to Mutiny when ordered to do things against what is JUST fail in their duties as Citizens.
Blindly following orders is not a sign of "heroism" , it a sign of Moral Cowardice.
The French have far more in the way of "Social Justice" and "Fraternity" then does the United States of America. They have this because they do far more then just complain. They will stand up for their rights.
Was Chief Joseph a "Surrender Monkey" because he surrendered to the US Military when he got sick of watching the old men, women and children of his tribe slaughtered by the US Military?
Were the Members of the US MIlitary "Heroes" because they continued to fight and make war on women and children who only wished treaty obligations be Honored?
Hmmm- France----home of the guillotine. Every imported French product I've owned I liked. Hint,hint, hint to some import/export firm.
late morning dreamer---MD