France: The Struggle to Defend the French Pension System

Lisbeth Latham

Since December 5, France has been gripped by ongoing strikes and mobilisations by a coalition of trade unions, high school and university student unions, as well as the gilet jaunes (yellow vests) to defeat the attack by the Macron and the Philippe government on France’s pension system. Whilst the alliance has been able to sustain a period of heightened mobilisations that have put the government under pressure, it remains unclear that the movement is powerful to defeat the attack, and there are serious barriers if the movement is to expand and grow.

Pension Counter Reforms
During the 2017 election campaign, Macron promised that he would look to “reform” France’s pension system. The current attacks both build on the changes to the pension system pushed through by the Sarkozy and Fillon government in 2010, and the failed attacks on the Special Retirement Plans for workers in a number of public services and recently privatised companies, launched in 1995 and 2007. These attacks have been justified on the need to make the pension system sustainable in the face of France’s ageing population (France’s pension system relies on pensions being paid out on the payments of current workers, with excess payments going into an investment fund).

The changes affecting the majority of French workers would increase the age which workers could access their pensions to 64 (in 2027) up from 62 years of age currently (Pivot Age), increase the period of time that workers have to have been working in order to qualify for a full pension from 42 to 43 years, and increase the age at which workers can retire on a full-pension without which working the minimum qualifying years work (Equalising Age).

The Special Retirement Plans refer to 42 different pension schemes received by workers in 15 organisations including rail workers with SNCF (French National Railway Company) and RATP (Autonomous Operator of Parisian Transportation), members of the Paris Opera, lawyers, members of the army, sailors, and the National Police. Workers in these primarily public organisations had had pension schemes (some of them dating back to Louis XIV) that had been in place prior to the introduction of the national pension scheme in October 1945. The Special Retirement Plans, tend to allow earlier retirement – many of these jobs are extremely physically strenuous, provide for workers to receive a higher defined benefit than the standard pensions, and have better indexation (the standard pension is indexed at inflation, whilst the majority of the Special Retirement Plan pensions provide for workers to have their pensions to be indexed with wage increases in their former industry). This attack on these has been justified on the basis of providing transparency and equality to the French pension system and would also secure the financial basis of the pensions in these plans (all of which are in sectors in which there have had significant contraction in employment and so there are substantial more retirees dependent on the pensions than workers contributing to the schemes), with the aim of splitting opposition to the pension reform.

Union Responses
Opposition to the proposed changes have been premised on four major arguments:
First that the changes will disproportionately affect women, who due to the socialised norms around responsibility for child-rearing means that women are more likely to have substantial career breaks and already many French women are unable to qualify for a full-pension prior to reaching pivot age, unions argue that increasing both the qualifying period and the full-pension age will cast greater numbers of women poverty in retirement - currently, women who have children are given credit towards their pension qualification, 1 year per child in the public sector, two-years per child in the private section, the proposed changes would remove this. Women currently receive 29% of the pensions of men, however, the CGT (Confédération générale du travail - General Confederation of Labour) expects this gap to rise to 42% if the current protections for women are removed as proposed.

Secondly, that increases in the pension ages mean that workers will increasingly be unable to retire prior to the onset of the illnesses of old age, and so fewer and fewer workers will be able to have a healthy period of retirement prior to the onset of these illnesses.

Your pharmacist recommends retirement before arthritis

Thirdly, the changes will unfairly impact workers who work in more physically demanding
industries. These workers currently are able to retire earlier, the extension of the pension age will put heavy pressure on the bodies of these workers to be able to work to the new pension age. Whilst the government has pulled back on the removal for some categories of workers, notably police and firefighters, sewage workers, who on average die seven years earlier than other workers and 17 years earlier than managers, will lose their current early retirement. 

Finally, that workers who lose their jobs later in their working lives, who already find it difficult to obtain work, will have to face a longer period of either unemployment or underemployment prior to reaching the pension age.

Convergence of struggles
The present movement draws together separate struggles that have been occurring in France during the Macron presidency. The left has, and the more militant unions have sought to draw together and converge the existing struggles within French society into the pension struggle. This has included pre-existing workers' struggles but has also included movements of students that have campaigned against both fees and the introduction of increased university entrance requirements which has seen thousands of young people fail to gain entrance to university and the introduction of increased student fees for international students and the mobilisation of thousands of university and high school students which has seen schools and universities blockaded and the call for exams to be totally cancelled to allow the full involvement of students in the movement. This process of convergence is not new, and his been an objective of a range of militant organisations since prior to the Macron presidency, and particularly in relation to the emergence of the Front Social and the Nuit Debout during struggle against the El Khomri attacks on the Labour Law and the gilet jaunes as a new force mobilisation which, since November 2018, has drawn into motion sections of the French popular classes that unions and other progressive forces have not been able to mobilise for an extended period of time.

State and Government Responses
In response to the mass movement the state, just as it has to other mobilisation since the November 2015 introduction of the (withdrawn in November 2017) state of emergency following the terror attacks in Paris, has responded with escalating repressive violence. There has been widespread footage of CRS (Republican Security Companies) and Gendarme riot police beating protestors, as well the deployment of a range of “non-lethal” weapons, including explosive tear gas grenades (France is the only European country to deploy explosive canisters in law enforcement) and flash balls, that has seen a steady rise in the number of people who have been maimed at protests.

In addition, the government has sought to manoeuvre in the hope of dividing and blunting the movement. The tactic has been the announcement of the “temporary” withdrawal of the first phases of the increase in the Pivot Age, that had been scheduled to begin in 2022. A withdrawal that is based on finding an alternative way of saving €12 billion “in order to secure the system by 2027” - the government has proposed a conference on January 30 to identify alternative mechanisms to make savings in the pension system. The “concessions” have primarily been aimed at the conservative unions, particularly the CFDT (Confédération française démocratique du travail - French Democratic Confederation of Labour - the largest French confederation when measured by the number of members and second-largest in employee representative bodies) and UNSA (L'Union nationale des syndicats autonomes - National Union of Autonomous Trade Unions, which is the second most popular union within both the SNSF and RAPT), who have responded positively to the concessions, with CFDT general secretary Berger calling the withdrawal of the 2022 Pivot Age phase-in date a victory for the CFDT and called on CFDT members to desist from participating in strikes and mobilisations against the pension reform. However, the more militant unions have rejected the overtures of the government, arguing that legislation is not amendable and that it should be withdrawn. The CGT, in a January 11 statement said, “that debate on the Pivot Age is simply aimed at winning the support of certain unions”. Léon Crémieux, a militant in SUD Rail, the trade union Solidaires union within the SNSF and RAPT, and leader of the NPA (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste - New Anticapitalist Party), argues that the conference is a trap which “ is going to close quickly since this conference will only be able to put the “pivotal age at 64” back in the frame, forcing retirement two years later, or lengthening the number of years worked necessary to retire (43 years today)”. SUD Rail, in a statement on January 24, said it would refuse to meet with the government and would continue to mobilise its members until the withdrawal of the bill. 

 The current movement has significant weaknesses
Despite significant public support, opinion polls suggest that support for the movement has reached peaks of 65%, however, the movement has failed to not only meet that level of support but the size and breadth of the major working-class mobilisations of the past three decades.

This has meant that the current movement is substantially bigger and longer-lasting than the peak of the counter government movements of the last decade, but the movement is substantially smaller than the big movements against government attacks against the working class of the last three decades, particularly the movements of 1995, 2003, and 2010. In 1995, the movement was primarily within the public sector, and was not directly supported by the more conservative unions particularly the CFDT, but were driven by the CGT and FO (Force ouvriere - Workers Force) - however, the more militant unions were able to draw much broader layers of the working class, including significant sections of the CFDT’s membership and support base, into motion. 2003 the movement against the first employment contract, which focused on the employment rights of young workers,, was primarily driven by mobilisations by students and education workers. The 2010 movement to defend the pension system, peaked at mobilisations of 3.5 million, and seven mobilisations of more than 2 million across eight weeks, in addition there indefinite strikes in a number of industries particularly oil refining which resulted in widespread fuel shortages. However despite the larger size of these earlier movements, they at best achieved partial victories, and in the case of 2010 movement, it failed totally and demobilised on the promise that a future Parti Socialiste (PS) government would repeal the changes - which the PS government never attempted to do, instead it introduced new attacks on the unions and France’s working class. Defeats which have contributed to the current inability of the movement to spread.

At the same time the ability of the movement to sustain itself and force the government to offer “concessions” has given hope that perhaps the movement can outlast the resilience of the government or potentially capital. Importantly, the movement has been expanding, the more than 200 mobilisations across France on January 24, drew an estimated 1.3 million people onto the street up from 800, 000 on January 16. At the centre of the struggle has been the strikes within the SNCF and RATP with 45 days of strike action which ended January 24. This strike was initiated by the militant union federation within both SNCF and RATP, and was primarily built on the back of the September strike within RATP against pension reform. Other key areas have been the depth of the struggle within France’s cultural institutions particularly the Paris Opera, which has been on strike and performing at the mass demonstrations in Paris, the Louvre, and the French National Library, the blockading of oil refineries which occurred between January 8 to 11. On January 24, the CGT stated it was seeking to initiate discussions with workers in those workplaces not yet on strike, to draw them into action. This is occurring through the holding of general assemblies of workers and at the workplace and municipal level. Whilst the inability to draw the more conservative unions, particularly the CFDT consistently into the movement is a real weakness and break on the movement’s potential to mobilise, it potentially could be a strength, as it reduces the influence of the CFDT on the movement and government cannot rely on the CFDT’s sudden withdrawal from the movement, which happened in 2010 after the pension changes were passed, to undermine and demobilise the movement. This has the potential to place considerable additional pressure on the government, as it is less likely, compared to 2010, that the movement will simply evaporate following the passing of any legislation. Added to this, with the splintering of the PS in the wake of the 2017 presidential elections, it is hard for more conservative forces to advocate an electoral solution to addressing the assault on pensions.

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The current national intersyndicale which brings together the CGT, FO, CGC-CFE (Confédération française de l'encadrement - Confédération générale des cadres - CFE-CGC), the trade union Solidaires, FSU (Fédération syndicale unitaire - Unitary Union Federation), FIDL ( Fédération indépendante et démocratique lycéenne - Independent and Democratic High School Federation), MNL (Mouvement national lycéen - National High School Student Movement), UNL (L’Union nationale lycéenne - The National High School Union), and UNEF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France - National Union of Students of France) has called for three further days of mobilisation on January 29, 30, and 31. These days of mobilisation will be an important test as to the direction of the movement’s inertia.

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France: Struggle over workplace rights looms as Macron secures power

Lisbeth Latham

The parliamentary majority President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition won in the second round of legislative elections held on June 18 was reported as a triumph against the weakened forces of both the left and the traditional right.

But questions have emerged over the real strength of the government as it prepares an assault on the rights of workers and their unions.

The parliamentary majority secured by Macron’s La Republique en Marche (LREM) and the allied Democratic Movement (MoDem) was smaller than expected. They won 360 seats in the 577-seat body (313 LREM and 47 MoDem respectively) — down from predictions after the first round of as many as 440 seats.

Despite still winning a clear majority, the stability of the government is questionable. In the week after the second round, the government had four ministers resign over a 48-hour period. The resignations relate to two separate sets of corruption scandals.

All of MoDem’s ministers have resigned, including party leader Francois Bayrou, over allegations that MoDem misused European Union parliamentary funds. Another minister who resigned was Richard Ferrand, also LREM’s secretary-general, who faces allegations of profiting from real estate sales while the head of a health insurance fund.

None of the four ex-ministers have been charged, and two now lead LREM and MoDem in parliament.

The traditional right-wing parties were weakened in the elections, losing 93 seats to hold just 136. The far-right National Front failed to reproduce Marine Le Pen’s success in the presidential elections, winning eight seats (up from the two in 2012).

However, the big losers were left parties.

The combined left vote, including Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed(FI), was the lowest combined vote in the first round for socialists/communists since World War II. The Socialist Part and its allies won just 45 seats, down from 331 in 2012.

FI won 17 seats, allowing it to form its own parliamentary group. The French Communist Party (PCF) received its lowest vote ever, but still increased its seat tally from seven to 11.

There were efforts to form a united parliamentary group between the FI and PCF. However, attempts were blocked by ongoing tensions between the groups.

Although the PCF does not have sufficient seats to form its own parliamentary group on its own, it was able to do so by securing the participation of five left MPs elected from France’s overseas territories.

The PCF and FI pledged to work together to fight against Macron’s neoliberal agenda for France. While the pledge may be undermined by their forces being divided in parliament, a far bigger problem is that the forces do not exist in parliament to build a left opposition capable of blocking Macron’s agenda.

Therefore, if Macron is to be stopped, it will be in the streets.

The first major attack looming against the popular classes is new proposed workplace laws. These follow on from the laws passed last year.

On June 28, the government presented an enabling bill that would introduce temporary ordinances to undermine the Labour Code. Once an enabling law has been passed, such ordinances are short term orders that change the laws for a period of time while the legalisation is still being debated. The enabling bill (but not the ordinances) will be debated on July 24. The text for the ordinances isnot expected to be published until September.

The exact character of the attacks is unclear. The government has only been willing to meet with unions for six hours to verbally outline their plans. However, the changes are expected to further weaken the historic principle in French industrial relations that the three levels of agreements — national, industry, and enterprise — should only improve workers’ rights as the agreements flow down to the local level.

Since 2004, changes to France’s labour laws began to allow enterprise agreements to begin to undermine industry agreements to a limited extent. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) expects the new changes to dramatically expand the areas in which an enterprise agreement can undercut industry level agreements.

Adding to this danger are the changes introduced in last year’s El Khomri labour laws, which make it dramatically easier for enterprise agreements to be imposed. The laws remove the ability of unions representing more than 50% of workers in workplace to veto an agreement negotiated by unions representing more than 30% of workers. Such an agreement can now be approved based on a ballot of workers.

If a new agreement undercuts existing conditions, it won’t automatically apply to existing workers. However, the El Khomri labour laws allow a company to sack any worker who refuses to accept the new lower conditions.

The CGT labelled the laws the death of industry level agreements and of the employment contract.

Resistance to the new laws has been muted. Protests have primarily been led by the Social Front (FS), which was established in April to bring together dozens of unions and social movement groups. FS called mobilisations on May Day, May 8 and June 19, with thousands taking to the streets in cities and towns across France.

A section of the more militant unions have begun to organise. On June 27, the CGT, Workers’ Force (FO), the trade union Solidaires and the United Trade Union Federation (FSU), along with the university student union UNEF, held a series of small demonstrations across France to coincide with MPs taking up their seats.

These unions have also called for joint mobilisations on September 12. The CGT has called for a day of strikes and protests.

This is an important step in building a movement in opposition to Macron’s attacks, but unions face a big hurdle in building a united movement to defend workers’ rights that they were unable to overcome last year. This is the refusal of the more conservative union confederations to mobilise their members to oppose the attacks.

Laurent Berger, the secretary- general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, expressed concerns at the pace at which the government is seeking to push through its changes. However, it has resisted being drawn on the proposals themselves.

This suggests the militant unions and the FS have considerable work ahead if they are to draw the members and supporters of the conservative unions into the streets.

Originally published in Green Left Weekly #1143.

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France: France Insoumise, the PCF and the challenge of building a left fight-back against Macron

Lisbeth Latham
The strong performance of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the French presidential election (19.58%), the highest vote by candidate to the left of social democracy since 1969, gave rise to hope for the potential for the French left to rebuild its presence in the French parliament and establish itself as a barrier to Macron establishing a parliamentary majority. A factor that could contribute to fully realising this opportunity would be the extent to which a united-left electoral campaign could be built– particularly between the parties which made up the Front de Gauche (Left Front - FG).

Jean-Luc Mélenchon addresses a France Insoumise rally

However, rather than unity the dynamics of division that have been in play for more than two years have largely deepened and could potentially result in the left returning fewer members to parliament than in 2012.

Mélenchon’s presidential campaign was primarily driven by France Insoumise (Indomitable France – FI), the mass organisation which Mélenchon launched on February 10, 2016 with the support of Parti de Gauche (Left Party – PG), the party he launched following his resignation from the PS in 2009. When FI was launched, Mélenchon also announced the dissolution of the Front de Gauche – the electoral front which had been launched between the PG, the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party – PCF) and a number of smaller left parties. FI has primarily organised via the web, with supporters being organised into committees of between 5-12 people, By May 1, FI had more than 450, 000 supporters, in March, when the organisation had over 260, 000 supporters, there were 2, 800 committees across.

Pierre Laurent

In addition to the support from FI, Mélenchon’s presidential campaign was supported by the PCF and Ensemble (a regroupment of smaller left groups within the FG). However, while the launch of FI and Mélenchon’s presidential campaign was supported by some of PCF’s leadership, particularly Pierre Laurent, PCF National Secretary, and Marie-George Buffet, current MP and former PCF National Secretary, many PCF members were hostile to both the creation of FI and to Melenchon’s presidential campaign. Fifty-five percent of the PCF’s National Conference on November 5, rejected a proposal to support Melenchon’s presidential bid. Three weeks later, 54% of the party’s 50, 000 paid membership voted to support Mélenchon’s candidacy. This support was vital, as in order to be formally nominated for president, he required the endorsement from 500 elected officials – which the PCF’s formal support gave him. There was also significant resistance within Ensemble where 30% of members voting against supporting Mélenchon’s candidature.

Mélenchon’s success in the presidential elections while being a culmination of a growth of in hope around his campaign – also raised the hope that if the vote could be translated through to the legislative elections there would be a possibility that the left of the PS could not only significantly boost its presence in parliament, but have a big enough contingent to be able to block Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche! (the Republic on the Move – LREM) holding a majority in the parliament. This need was reinforced after Macron announced his government with former right-wing Les Repulicains MP Édouard Philippe as his prime minister. Macron announced plans for a new round of attacks on workers to follow on from last year’s El Khomri labour laws which significantly undermined worker and union rights.

Despite this hope and need for a united left electoral response, it has not materialised. While in the wake of the Macron’s victory in the second round both the PCF and Ensemble! issued statements calling for a united left electoral ticket. FI insisted the basis for unity was for candidates run under FI’s banner, be based on acceptance of FI’s program, and that all public funding generated based on votes for FI candidates would go to FI. Positions which the PCF was unwilling to accept, based on their desire run under a common banner but also allow individual parties to be profiled and the PCF’s unwillingness to campaign for the withdrawal from nuclear power generation. On May 9, Manuel Bompard an FI spokesperson announced that negotiations had broken down, he blamed the PCF’s Laurent for this. As a consequence, the FI would be running its own candidates in every constituency including constituencies where the PCF, Ensemble!, or Europe Ecology les Vertes (Europe Ecology - The Greens) have sitting MPs (unless the sitting MP had endorsed Mélenchon’s presidential campaign).

The failure to form a united ticket reflects long-running tensions within the FG which culminated in the 2015 regional elections where the FG was heavily divided and received tiny votes. From the outset there were tensions within the Front about both the character of the front, was it an alliance between organisations or should individual activists be able to join and have a say, and around democracy, with the PCF, particularly in areas where it was the largest organisation, imposing its candidates, there had also been tensions as to who could say they were front candidate – which was a problem in municipal and regional elections where tickets are run and at times member organisations were represented on different tickets – with the sharpest question being could a ticket involving official PS candidates be labelled a FG ticket? With the PCF (which was more likely to be in such an alliance pushing for the ability for it to wave the FG flag in these circumstances).

These tensions culminated in a meeting of the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (EUG/NGL) in 2014 where PG sort to block Pierre Laurent’s election to the presidency of the EUL/NGL over the question of the PCF’s running joint tickets with the PS, although Laurent was subsequently elected. In the 2015 regional elections (which were marked by a sharp increase in support for the Front National) the FG ran only a seven of tickets involving all of the FG– with the rest being a variety of separate tickets with the PCF and thePG running on different tickets. The joint tickets performed badly, with the only ticket in Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées receiving sufficient votes to contest the second round – all the remaining tickets averaging 2.49%. In the wake of this failure, the Front essentially stopped operating as a joint organisation and Mélenchon announcing the PG would be leaving the Front.

The rupture between the PCF and FI has created considerable concern that it will dramatically undermine the ability to of the left to maximise its parliamentary representation and build an effective block to work with social movements to oppose Macron’s regressive agenda for France. On May 10, Ensemble! issued a statement saying that it was not the time to settle scores or for mutual accusations, but instead to build a framework for bringing together the forces which had supported Mélenchon’s candidacy, based on a proposal of a common charter for candidates for the legislative elections that Ensemble! had made to the PCF and FI – Ensemble! had also called for regional and departmental meetings of the organisations to try and overcome the “national bottleneck”. While these proposals if adopted might create clarity for the basis of joint candidates, it doesn’t overcome the sticking point of who would be the candidate in each constituency – particularly when the PCF is faced with a fight for its electoral survival, and there is a view that Mélenchon’s approach to the PCF is partly motivated by desire to further marginalise the PCF.

It is unclear what the impact of the electoral division will have on the elections. The shared polling for the FI/PCF has been in decline since early May from a high of 18% to a low of 14.5% with projected returned candidates down from a projected high of 25-30 to a low of 12-22 (the FG components currently hold 10 seats). The splitting of the vote is likely to result in less candidates making it through to the second round (unlike the presidential elections where only the top two candidates go through to the second round, in the legislative elections if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote then all candidates receiving more than 12% of the vote qualify for the second round) other than lowering confidence of the left electorate, having two or more left candidates (both the Nouveau Parti Anticapitlisate and Lutte Ouvrier will also be standing candidates) in a constituency may not undermine the capacity for the left to win seats. The bigger threats are the potential rebound in the PS vote from the historic low of 6.38% which Hamon received in April – while the left division could contribute to this – the PS performs is likely to be better at the local level particularly from the PS’s left who opposed the regressive record of the Hollande and the governments of Aryault and Valls. An additional factor is that Hamon’s vote also collapsed as Mélenchon’s campaign built momentum and it looked more likely he could overtake Francois Fillon and possibly Le Pen – this dynamic is much less likely to occur in the legislative elections, at least at the national level. By far the biggest threat to the return of left candidates, however, will be the threat of abstentionism as people see a victory for Macron’s LREM and the forces to its right as inevitable.

The reality is that no matter the result for the parties of the left – they will not be able to block Macron’s agenda by their actions in parliament alone – even if LREM does not achieve an electoral majority outright, it will be in a position to try and stick together sufficient support from the PS and Les Repulicains to pass legislation. The only force which will be able to stop that process will be the resistance in the streets. To this end, there has been a positive boost to the resistance with the formation of the Social Front. Initiated by union activists who had been involved in the campaign against the El Khomri laws and who had been frustrated by the decision by union leaderships to end mobilisations against those laws on September 15, 2016. The FS called for mobilisations against both Le Pen and Macron on April 22, May 1, and May 8 – it has now expanded its support to from 70 militant organisations. The FS has also called for a national meeting on June 10, along with local organising meetings after that date, and a mass mobilisation for June 19. The significance of the emergence of the FS is that in the last decade resistance to government attacks, particularly on workers, has primarily occurred via the intersydicale which brings together the leaderships of France’s union confederations – however if some of these confederations refuse to participate such as the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) and the Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (French Confederation of Christian Workers) in the campaign against the El Khomri laws in 2016, then there is a very limited framework for engaging rank-and-file members of these confederations who want to fight government attacks. The formation of the FS may provide a framework to reach out to broader layers of workers and build resistance despite the direction of the more conservative confederation leaderships.

While there are serious challenges for progressive forces in France – made more difficult by the organisational divisions within the left, both the legislative elections and the formation of the FS pose a positive opportunity to build resistance to the attacks which Macron is preparing on French society. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

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