The French workers are providing a magnificent example for the proletariat of all countries. For weeks now they have taken up the fight against the “jobs act” which facilitates lay-offs for economic reasons, allowing companies to fire workers when hit by a crisis (due to decreases in orders or sales, reorganization of the company or to safeguard competitiveness), introducing greater flexibility and conferring greater power on in-house or individual negotiation than it has at present, particularly with regard to management of working hours, with the relative impoverishment of national negotiations – all in a climate of general liberalization of the job market… Things that are all too familiar in Italy and elsewhere. Against trade union boycotting, which dilutes and breaks up the protest action, not hesitating (as is now common practice everywhere) to support harsh repression by the state, the French workers have come out on strike, have occupied and paralysed refineries, nuclear power stations, ports, roads, railway lines, brought Paris and other cities to a standstill with huge demonstrations and have clashed repeatedly with the “forces of law and order” which have been brought to the field in massive numbers. The action is still going on and it is difficult to foresee the developments and future outcomes. But even thus far, the French workers have confirmed by their actions that it is by fighting and not by means of union or political negotiations that living and working conditions are defended.
Long live the French workers’ struggle! In the hope that their proud blaze of resistance may spread well beyond its national boundaries!
May 2016
International Communist Party