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From Socialist Worker, No. 84, June 1968, p. 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
THE GENERAL STRIKE which paralysed the whole of France was the spontaneous result of the anger felt by the workers against the violence of the state against the students. The student demonstrations were the culmination of diverse, often unco-ordinated agitation in the universities by socialist students. When opposition to this agitation came from right-wing students violence began and became more widespread.
The university authorities reacted first by suspending political discussion and then by completely closing the Sorbonne university. This led to street fighting between students and the police when the students demanded the reopening of the Sorbonne.
Police brutality was the flashpoint for the accumulated grievances of the French working class against the Gaullist regime. Strike demands poured from the union rank and file and a one-day general strike was called for Monday May 13 – a day that also saw a million workers in the streets in solidarity with the students.
During the next two days, students went to the factories, discussed the situation with the workers, explained the reasons for their struggle and forged a link between their demands and the demands of the workers.
By Thursday, spontaneous demands for factory occupation were occurring all over France. The situation developed so rapidly that it is difficult to pin-point an exact sequence. It is clear that the union leadership opposed the strikes, but the determination of the rank and file presented them with an ultimatum.
When a student spoke to a factory gate meeting at the Renault factory on the outskirts of Paris, a union official suggested that the paramilitary police were waiting nearby, and that the student had called them there. Another argued that the workers were not strong enough and should wait another day to discuss a one-day token strike.
Little attention was paid to the officials and the young workers suggested factory occupation and machine-breaking. They were talked out of the latter, but the massive Renault plant was immediately taken over.
The strike spread by Friday to the factory police, security men and canteen workers, who struck only to remain and work all the harder to feed their comrades.
The most impressive feature was the spontaneity of the strikes. Large factories were seized and the process snowballed until the unions were forced to backing the strikes and even to help spread them.
Many sections of French society followed the lead of the workers – footballers, office workers, customs men, hotel workers; even the army and police were at breaking point and were opposed to any action against the workers.
Factory occupation is a crucial feature of the situation in France. It boldly asserts that the factory is not private property, and symbolises the possibility of socialism and production for use. It is a huge jump beyond the labour-withdrawal tactic, in which workers withdraw “our” labour from “your” factory. When the plant is seized the means of production are recognised by the workers as social property, as theirs to have and to hold.
Because of the spontaneous nature of the strike, there has been no real clarity of aims and the union leadership has been able to impose purely economic demands on the workers. These demands are reformist but massive in their range. They cover 25 per cent wage increases, the abolition of anti-strike legislation, the 40 hour week without loss of pay as against 48 hours plus, extended holidays for young workers (5 weeks) and massive increases in social security benefits.
The unions are being pushed to make ever wider demands, to begin to raise the issues of workers’ control. Each demand indicates rank-and-file pressure which goes beyond reforms towards socialist reconstruction of society from the bottom up.
The most serious problem for the French workers is the complete absence of any revolutionary organisation capable of articulating and generalising the revolutionary implications of the mass strikes. The field is therefore wide open for the French Communist Party.
The CP’s demands are reformist and basically bourgeois. Its political demands are for a democratic state wielded by a coalition of “popular” forces. The party lags way behind the economic demands of the workers, and is continually pressurised to to extend its range.
The initial demands on CP handouts and strike posters were for a minimum wage of 600 francs per month. Everywhere in every factory, in every industry, the demand was for 1,000 francs.
The CP’s position can be seen from the following:–
“The workers, the employees, technicians, designers, the engineers must not only be represented in the councils of administration, but further have at their disposal real powers. For this to be possible, a democratic state is necessary. It is necessary that all other economic, social and political life conforming to the popular interests and to the national interest can be elaborated and applied.” (Bulletin of the CGT on nationalisation of the car factories)
Paradoxically, the great strength of the French workers is their biggest weakness. They are so strong that there is no opposition. The state machine is paralysed, the police and the army are divided and cannot be used to intervene. But this means that the workers become complacent and just remain in their factories which is a major weakness of the sit-in strikes. Meanwhile, they give the ruling class time to recover and regroup.
What is needed is a decisive thrust from the revolutionary left, providing the initiative to get the workers on to the streets and expropriate the capitalists. Local insurrections are needed for workers to take over whole districts. But the revolutionary left feels so small and insignificant compared with the mass Communist Party that they will probably be incapable of delivering the goods.
It is difficult to suggest what may happen next. A food crisis could develop in the cities and the workers will have to move on to the streets to requisition it. (At present workers buy food collectively through the factory committees for the occupation.)
Right-wing demonstrators may take to the streets in greater numbers and start attacking workers.
Even if the ruling class were to grant massive reforms temporarily (and for them temporary reforms, however big, are better than permanent expropriation), such reforms will probably disappear after a few months through an equally massive devaluation of the franc and the workers will be back to square one.
The danger of reforms is that it will give the ruling class and the far right time to regroup and may also lead to a demoralisation of some sections of the workers, even though the hard core of the revolutionary left will become even harder. But de Gaulle’s speech on May 24 indicates that little will be offered.
The implications for Britain and the other advanced capitalist countries are immense. The ideas of Henry Marcuse and those who look to the “third world” for the coming revolutions have been exposed as nonsense.
Revolution in the advanced countries is the order of the day. Today France is in turmoil, tomorrow it could be Spain, Britain or Italy.
The role played by the students has also become clear. Although they can never be the agents of social change, they can act as a catalyst in the process. The activities of the French students provided the flashpoint for the frustrations of the workers; their demands for a new social order voiced the feelings of many workers. Whatever the outcome of the upheaval in France, one thing is certain it will stimulate an international financial crisis. If the franc is devalued then in all probability so will the pound and the dollar. This will lead to even greater inroads being made in the standards of living of the respective working classes, these inroads possibly stimulating situations similar to France.
The main lesson we must learn from the French situation is the need for a large revolutionary organisation capable of giving direction to the demands of the working class. The sectarian tendencies of the fifties, which were undoubtedly necessary for survival at the time, must be thrown overboard.
Only by all revolutionary socialists, who share common ground on revolution in the west uniting in an organisation capable of giving a revolutionary lead will that revolution be achieved in the shortest possible time.
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Last updated on 30 October 2020