Posted on 01/20/2005 11:13:06 AM PST by NormsRevenge
PARIS (Reuters) - Some 210,000 public sector workers marched through French cities on Thursday in widening protests over pay, reforms and job cuts that have sent a sharp warning to President Jacques Chirac's conservative government.
On the third day of protests, some schools closed because of a one-day strike by teachers, and a stoppage by air traffic controllers grounded flights at Bordeaux in western France.
The protests followed a warning strike by rail workers that severely disrupted rail traffic across France on Wednesday and protests by energy and postal workers earlier this week.
Unions said 50,000 had joined a protest march that snaked noisily through Paris, though police put the number at 20,000.
"I'm protesting against the quasi-reforms the government is carrying out. They're killing the public services. It has to stop. Soon there'll be nothing left," said Lionel Reinisch, 35, a civil servant from the Paris suburb of Creteil.
Nationally, police said some 210,000 had taken part in protests, more than the 203,700 claimed by the CGT union.
Elisabeth David, head of the Unsa trade union that represents public sector workers, hailed the turnout: "This day is a success that has gone beyond our expectations."
The government has vowed to press on with economic reforms. But it fears a failure to address the strikers' concerns could prompt voters to punish it by opposing the European Union (news - web sites) constitution in a referendum expected before July.
Chirac showed his concern by urging deputies from his ruling conservative party on Wednesday to make sure the referendum does not turn into a vote on domestic policies.
PRESSURE ON RAFFARIN
The strikes, provoked by discontent on issues that vary from sector to sector, have increased pressure on Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
He has played down any parallels with street protests that are widely seen as causing the downfall of the last conservative government in 1997, and took a tough line in comments to reporters.
"The strike is an element of social dialogue. What is not acceptable is when the strike becomes a blockage," he said. "Anyone responsible for the breakdown of dialogue must expect to be treated with the necessary firmness."
France's economy, the second biggest in the euro zone, has hit a soft patch but the government is aiming for 2.5 percent growth in 2005 and aims to cut unemployment this year from 9.9 percent to about 9.0 percent.
Many workers are demanding pay rises which the government can ill afford to meet as it tries to limit public spending and keep the budget deficit to within limits set by the EU.
Some workers oppose reforms and many reject planned changes to the law governing the 35-hour working week which the government says will make it more flexible and make French industry more competitive.
Many ordinary people simply feel their purchasing power has receded because pay rises have not kept pace with inflation.
"Many average employees who yesterday seemed to be in a stable and even enviable situation ... no longer have that," said Francois Bayrou, head of the center-right UDF party.
He said France faced a "very deep social malaise."
Precisely. The more colloquial and modern term there would be "Enarques", the graduates of the "National College of Administration", the elite bureaucrat training school.
It reads like a press release from the prime minister's office, full of euphemisms and optimism.
US free market conservatives are "Liberals" there, who barely exist.Correct. The same applies in Latin American, where the free-market proponents are derided as "neoliberals." People who share our ideologies are definitely a minority outside the US.Chirac's conservatives aren't communists or socialists, but old style European "dirigistes" - the institutional heirs of Louis XIV's centralizing ministers, or Bismarck for that matter.
The sad thing is that Chiraq is a conservative by French standards.
Thats right. Spain and Latin America both drew from the same centralizing roots as France (note how Spain began running the Latin American trade via an official trading cartel way back in the sixteenth century), and moreover had a stiff dose of the genuine French style through the Bourbon monarchy.
Its obvious to me that people have a limited ability to transcend their cultural roots. The US, a frontier society with no strong central authority, was able to create a new thing under the sun. Its been a genuine struggle for other peoples with incompatible cultural baggage to copy the US, even where the sense of reform is inescapable.
French socialists aren't Christian at all in my experience. They are certainly not religious. They just don't have an official atheist ideology, like the Communists do.
They are most certainly conservatives in one sense, today. They don't want the status quo changed.
Mitterand.
France's economy was in fairly good shape, indeed it was a power, before Mitterand came in and socialized the living hell out of it.
you wouldn't believe the vic an employer must pay into the welfare system for every franc/euro/whatever paid to the employee.
Are you ready?
Almost 100%
There is a reason unemployment is so damned high in France.
Makes sense.
Government workers are striking to protest the government cutting programs.
From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.
Since when did Chirac become a conservative??
Interesting. It sounds like the French are voting for the same rulers who served the monarchy.
But first, a few private messages. Tomorrow, treacle will turn to brandy. Tomorrow, treacle will turn to brandy. John has a long moustache. I repeat...
Good old French saying - pretty much a cliche -
"The more things change the more they stay the same".
A comment on the French revolution I think.
They need a Ronald Reagan. With 10% unemployment there should be plenty of people who would be glad to have their jobs.
LMAO; well said.
Sorry. I stopped taking the French seriously when I found out just how popular Jerry Lewis is there.
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