France: Workers and students occupy theatres to demand the reopening of the cultural sector

Protest outside the occupied Odeon Theatre

Lisbeth Latham

On March 4, workers and students within France’s cultural sector began occupying the Theatre Odeon in Paris as part of protests aimed at increasing government support for the sector in the face of the economic impact of the COVID pandemic. Since March 4 the occupations have spread and there are now over theatres across France that have been occupied. The movement is an important development within the French labour movement’s response to the current crisis and follows the central role played by workers at the Paris Opera played during the 2019-2020 movement to defend pensions.

Striking Ballerinas perform Swan Lake December 2019

Like in most countries the COVID pandemic has caused considerable disruption to the French economy. In response to the crisis, the French government has sought to support the wages of workers (albeit those workers who have had their hours reduced only have up to 60% of their incomes protected) and the capacity of companies to survive even if they were no longer able to operate - this has included making available government-backed financing. All aid to business is tied to a restriction on these companies not paying either bonuses or dividends for a period they receive the support.

At the same time as businesses have been supported, France’s cultural sector has been repeatedly ignored and abandoned by the Macron government. While workers have had access to wage subsidies museums and theatres were not initially provided with the same support as other businesses, and despite widespread planning regarding how to safely reopen in the context COVID, have been largely ignored in government planning for reopening following the end of France’s second national lockdown in December, with the exception of bookshops and small private galleries, which have been treated by the government as shops rather than cultural spaces in planning.

This abandonment of France’s cultural sector. Which has been so central to French identity for the past century. Has caused considerable anger in France not just because of the immediate and potential long term impact on the affected spaces, but also the potential weakening for French culture in face of globalising cultural imperialism emanating particularly from the US. With fears that France’s efforts to protect the French language and cultural products, which itself is part of the French imperialist project in francophone countries that remain from France and Belgium’s former colonial empires, and its cultural and economic hegemony over these neo-colonies. While this tension between the maintenance of French identity and its own cultural imperialism means that the process is not unproblematic the destruction of the French cultural sector would be a significant loss to the diversity of cultural production globally and a disaster for the workers within the French cultural sector.

The tensions within this space have been reflected in a number of protests, most notably an impromptu performance by cellist Gautier Capuçon in a supermarket to highlight the difference in restrictions operating in theatres and other spaces as compared to commercial spaces. While these differences can be justified on the basis of what constitutes an “essential service” it also demonstrates significant anger at the abandonment of the cultural sector and its workers.

On March 4 protests were held across France. In Paris, the protests culminated in the occupation of the Odeon Theatre by workers and students, particularly the General Confederation of Labour’s (CGT) cultural worker federations the Syndicat Français des Artistes Interprètes (French Performers Union - CGT-SFA), Fédération nationale des syndicats du spectacle de l'audiovisuel et de l'action culturelle (National Federation of Audiovisual and Cultural Action Unions - CGT-Spectacle) and Syndicat National des Professionnels du Théâtre et des Activités Culturelles (National Union of Theater and Cultural Activities Professionals - SYNPTAC-CGT).

On March 4 protests occurred in France calling for the reopening of Cultural Spaces. In Paris, students entered the Odeon Theatre. Since March 4, the occupation movement has spread, by March 14 occupations had spread to 30 cultural buildings across France.

Map of occupied theatres source:@occupationodeon

In response, Roselyne Bachelat, Minister of Culture, announced that the government announced that it would be making €20 million available to support the cultural sector. However, this package is totally inadequate to meet the challenges facing the sector and is dwarfed by the support provided to companies in other sectors by the government. At the same time, Bachelat has sought to delegitimise the movement, arguing that the occupations posed a physical threat to the buildings - many of which are historic sites.

The CGT-SFA has rejected these claims issuing a statement on March 17 stating:

“Madame Bachelot, we are not rambunctious children whom you can publicly lecture for what you seem to consider to be a whim on our part. We demand a minimum of respect, even though for many months we, performers, workers in the performing arts, have been considered non-essential to the life of the country. Our struggle, far from giving our jobs a bad image, on the contrary, gives us back our dignity.

 

If the actions we are taking disturb you Madame Minister, know that this is precisely the goal we are looking for, and as long as we have not obtained satisfaction with the demands that we are making, we will continue”.

Moreover, the occupations have been supported by the managements of the occupied buildings, an example being David Bobée, director of the Théâtre du Nord in Lille, who reported by Radio France Internationale on March 15, as expressing his “complete and total support to this new mobilisation” which he described and an appeal to “revive the performing arts as quickly as possible”.

The CGT-SFA, SYNPTAC-CGT, CGT-Spectacle and SUD Culture, the cultural worker federation of the Solidaires union confederation, in prosecuting their campaign to reopen cultural buildings not simply by advocating on behalf of cultural workers, but by linking this struggle with the broader efforts in France to opposed attacks by President Macron and the Castex government on the rights of all French workers.

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How the Neoliberal Thought Collective uses "feminist" language to defend misogyny

Lisbeth Latham

Other the past months federal politics has seen the airing of a series of allegations of inappropriate behaviour and outright sexual assault against Morrison government ministers and staffers. These allegations have caused understandable anger amongst wide sections of society, most particularly women - highlighted by the Marchs 4 Justice on March 14 and 15 in numerous cities and towns. In response government ministers and their supporters and defenders in the media have relied on dubious legalistic arguments based on spurious legalism and denials of misogyny. Much of the responses to these defences have tended to see these arguments as reflecting a lack of understanding of concerns and/or poor leadership on the part of Morrison. However, these interpretations tend to make the mistake of seeing the statements and arguments coming from the government and its support networks as being genuine, if ill informed or mistaken. I would argue that instead these arguments are not at all genuine, but are instead of a conscious destablisation and misinformation campaign being conducted by sections of the neoliberal thought collective within Australia to buttress and defend the government and if we are to respond effectively to the current crisis we must accept this reality that significant sections of the media are not good faith actors.

Capitalism as a system is a highly unstable system, it has a tendency toward crisis and contains within it a significant number of contradictions which further this instability. At the same time, despite predictions of inevitable limits and the possibility of collapse, it has demonstrated itself to be an remarkably resilient and flexible system that has been able to adapt to, absorb, neutralise, and eliminate potential threats. Central aspect to this resilience has been the capacity of capitalism and its supporters/beneficiaries to construct a cultural hegemony in support of the system which works to normalise and integrate, and where necessary, smash threats to the system. Within late capitalism, as neoliberalism has become the hegemonic response to capitalist crisis and contradiction this hegemony, particularly amongst ordinary people, has been increasingly been buttressed by the neoliberal thought collective(s).

The concept of a neoliberal thought collective, developed by a range of theorists of neoliberalism such as Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, refers to the networks of neoliberal idealogues and promoters that exist within and move between academia, think tanks, and media. During the early period of neoliberal thought, when it represented a marginal approach seeking to overturn the dominant social democratic and liberal responses to capitalist crisis, served to help spread ideas and promote the legitimacy of neoliberalism as a response to capitalist response - however has it has emerged as the dominant system the NTC not only promotes neoliberal responses to crisis within its own networks and more broadly, but seeks to defend it’s system by destabilising and undermining alternative approaches - most succinctly articulated in Thatcher’s maxim “There Is No Alternative” in this way demonstrating, as Steven Lukes has suggested, that an important aspect power is the ability to limit possible policy options which are available. Central to the approach of the NTC is to deligitimise alternative perspectives and approaches by co-opting and misusing the language and ideas of its opponents, effectively neutralising by creating confusion as to what these positions actually represent and are arguing.

As mass anger at the allegations against Christian Porter and Liberal staffers - and the acts by the government to protect them rather than hold them to account has increased we have seen a new wave of defences being articulated based a superficially feminist basis - which appears as an apparent break from the attempts at rape apologism and victim initially mobilised by the government and its supporters - most notably Peter van Onselen. This is best reflected in a number of opinion pieces by fairfax columnist Parnell Palme McGuinness titled “Boomer feminism is not what we need at this transformational moment” and “Scott Morrison is not a misogynist, what lacks is a female inner circle” which follow an November 2020 piece “Please, not in the name of feminism:Expose of ministers’ private lives”. In these pieces McGuinness attempts to exploit and mobilise existing divisions within the Australian feminist movement, most notably between older second wave feminists and feminists who have emerged and been influenced by feminisms third and fourth wave.

The significance of these articles is not the actual arguments contained within them, which are dubious and disingenuous, but they way they have sought to mobilise feminist language in justifying a defence of Porter and Morrison. Whilst these articles have been widely seen as bad articles with weak arguments, in drawing responses and shifting debate onto the their spurious arguments the articles work in both shifting the debate away from what to do about an attorney general who is faces credible allegations of rape and a governmetn which defends him to the validity of McGuinness’s argument and adds to the general divisions which exist within the current movement.

It is necessary to simply reject outright any attempt to distract from the seriousness of sexual assault within our community and the failures of institutions to address this violence. At the same time it is vital that we recognise that the only way to move the movement forward and achieve real change is to support the mobilisation of survivors and their supporters with the aim of making attempts to ignore the movement and continue as normal are simply impossible.

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This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

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